The Assassination Option Part 2

"That wasn't my question, sir."

"He's hoping he will be able to control me."

"What's General Donovan going to do now?"

"You know he's a lawyer? A very good one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the President, citing that, asked him to go to Nuremberg as Number Two to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who's going to be the chief American prosecutor."

"He threw him a bone, in other words?"

"Now that you're a lieutenant colonel, Colonel, you're going to have to learn to control your tendency to ask out loud questions that should not be asked out loud."

"Admiral, you have a meeting with the President at ten forty-five," Allred said.

Souers walked to the bed, extending his hand.

"I'll be in touch, Max," he said. "Get yourself declared ambulatory. The sooner I can get you back to Argentina, the better."

"I was thinking, sir, that I would go to Germany first, to have a look at the Pullach compound, and get with Colonel Mattingly and Lieutenant Cronley, before I go back to Buenos Aires."

"I think that's a very good idea, if you think you're up to all that travel," he said.

"I'm up to it, sir."

"I hadn't planned to get into this with you. That was before you agreed to stay on. But now . . ."

"Yes, sir?"

"Now that you're going to have to have a commander-subordinate relations.h.i.+p with Captain . . . Captain . . . Cronley . . ."

"Sorry, sir. I knew that the President had promoted Cronley for grabbing the uranium oxide in Argentina."

"And for his behavior-all right, his 'valor above and beyond the call of duty.'"

"Yes, sir."

"Prefacing this by saying I think he fully deserved the promotion, and the Distinguished Service Medal that went with it, and that I personally happen to like him very much, I have to tell you what happened after he returned to Germany."

"Yes, sir?"

"Admiral," Lieutenant Allred said, as he tapped his wrist.w.a.tch, "the President . . ."

"The world won't end if I'm ten minutes late," Admiral Souers said. "And if it looks as if we'll be late, get on the radio to the White House and tell them we're stuck in traffic."

"Yes, sir."

"You know about those Negro troops who have been guarding Kloster Grnau? Under that enormous first sergeant they call 'Tiny'? First Sergeant Dunwiddie?"

"Cronley talked about him. He said he comes from an Army family that goes way back. That they were Indian fighters, that two of his grandfathers beat Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War."

"Did he mention that he almost graduated from Norwich? That his father was a Norwich cla.s.smate of Major General I.D. White, who commanded the Second Armored Division?"

"No, sir."

"Well, when Cronley returned to Germany, to Kloster Grnau, he learned that those black soldiers-the ones he calls 'Tiny's Troopers'-had grabbed a man as he attempted to pa.s.s through-going outward-the barbed wire around Kloster Grnau. He had doc.u.ments on him identifying him as Major Konstantin Orlovsky of the Soviet Liaison Mission. They have authority to be in the American Zone.

"On his person were three rosters. One of them was a complete roster of all of General Gehlen's men then inside Kloster Grnau. The second was a complete roster of all of Gehlen's men whom we have transported to Argentina, and the third was a listing of where in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, et cetera, that Gehlen believed his men who had not managed to get out were.

"It was clear that Orlovsky was an NKGB agent. It was equally clear there was at least one of Gehlen's men-and very likely more than one-whom the NKGB had turned and who had provided Orlovsky with the rosters.

"When he was told of this man, Colonel Mattingly did what I would have done. He ordered Dunwiddie to turn the man over to Gehlen. Gehlen-or one or more of his officers-would interrogate Orlovsky to see if he'd give them the names of Gehlen's traitors.

"Do I have to tell you what would happen to them if the interrogation was successful?"

"They would 'go missing.'"

"As would Major Orlovsky. As cold-blooded as that sounds, it was the only solution that Mattingly could see, and he ordered it carried out. And, to repeat, I would have given the same order had I been in his shoes.

"Enter James D. Cronley Junior, who had by then been a captain for seventy-two hours. When Dunwiddie told him what had happened, he went to see the Russian. He disapproved of the psychological techniques Gehlen's interrogator was using. Admittedly, they were nasty. They had confined him naked in a windowless cell under the Kloster Grnau chapel, no lights, suffering time disorientation and forced to smell the contents of a never-emptied canvas bucket which he was forced to use as a toilet.

"Cronley announced he was taking over the interrogation, and ordered Tiny's Troopers to clean the cell, empty the canvas bucket, and to keep any of Gehlen's men from having any contact whatsoever with Orlovsky."

"What did Gehlen do about that? Mattingly?"

Souers did not answer the question.

"Cronley and Dunwiddie then began their own interrogation of Major Orlovsky. As Colonel Mattingly pointed out to me later, Orlovsky was the first Russian that either Dunwiddie or Cronley had ever seen."

"Sir, when did Colonel Mattingly learn about this? Did General Gehlen go to him?"

After a just perceptible hesitation, Souers answered the question.

"Colonel Mattingly didn't learn what Captain Cronley was up to until after Orlovsky was in Argentina."

"What?" Ashton asked, shocked.

"Cronley got on the SIGABA and convinced Colonel Frade that if he got Orlovsky to Argentina, he was convinced he would be a very valuable intelligence a.s.set in the future."

"And Cletus agreed with this wild hair?"

"Colonel Frade sent Father Welner, at Cronley's request, to Germany to try to convince Orlovsky that Cronley was telling the truth when he said they would not only set him up in a new life in Argentina, but that General Gehlen would make every effort to get Orlovsky's family out of the Soviet Union and to Argentina."

"Gehlen went along with this?"

"The officer whom many of his peers believe is a better intelligence officer than his former boss, Admiral Canaris, ever was, was in agreement with our Captain Cronley from the moment Cronley told him what he was thinking."

"So this Russian is now in Argentina?"

"Where he will become your responsibility once you get there. At the moment, he's in the Argerich military hospital in Buenos Aires, under the protection of the Argentine Bureau of Internal Security, recovering from injuries he received shortly after he arrived in Argentina."

"Injuries?"

"The car in which he was riding was attacked shortly after it left the airport by parties unknown. They used machine guns and Panzerfausts-"

"What?"

"German rocket-propelled grenades."

"Then they were Germans?"

"The BIS-and Cletus Frade-believes they were Paraguayan criminals hired by the Russians. So does Colonel Sergei Likharev of the NKGB."

"Who?"

"When Major Orlovsky realized that the NKGB was trying to kill him, and probably would do something very unpleasant to his wife and kids if General Gehlen could not get them out of the Soviet Union, he fessed up that his name is really Likharev and that he is-or was-an NKGB colonel. And gave up the names of Gehlen's traitors."

"What happened to them?"

"You don't want to know, Colonel Ashton."

"So Cronley did the right thing."

"I don't think that Colonel Mattingly would agree that the ends justify the means."

"But you do?"

"On one hand, it is inexcusable that Cronley went around Mattingly. On the other hand, we now have Colonel Likharev singing like that proverbial canary. And on the same side of that scale, General Gehlen has gone out of his way to let me know in what high regard he holds Cronley and Dunwiddie. But let me finish this."

"Yes, sir."

"After Frade informed me that he believed Likharev had truly seen the benefits of turning, and that he believed he would be of enormous value to us in the future, I was willing to overlook Cronley's unorthodoxy. Then Cronley got on the SIGABA and sent me a long message stating that he considered it absolutely essential that when he is transferred to the DCI that he have another commissioned officer to back him up, and that he wanted First Sergeant Dunwiddie commissioned as a captain-he said no one pays any attention to lieutenants-to fill that role.

"My first reaction to the message, frankly, was 'Just who the h.e.l.l does he think he is?' I decided that it probably would be unwise to leave him in command of the Pullach compound. I then telephoned General Gehlen, to ask how he would feel about Major Harold Wallace-do you know who I mean?"

Shaking his head, Ashton said, "No, sir."

"He was Mattingly's deputy in OSS Forward . . ."

"Now I do, sir."

"And is now commanding the Twenty-seventh CIC, which is the cover for the Twenty-third CIC, to which Cronley and Dunwiddie are a.s.signed. You are familiar with all this?"

"Yes, sir."

"I asked General Gehlen how he would feel if I arranged for Major Wallace to take over command of the Pullach compound. He replied by asking if he could speak freely. I told him he could. He said that in the best of all possible worlds, he would prefer that Colonel Mattingly and Major Wallace have as little to do with Pullach as possible. When I asked why, he said that he regarded the greatest threat to the Pullach compound operation, in other words, to Operation Ost, was not the Russians but the U.S. Army bureaucracy.

"In case you don't know, the Pentagon-the deputy chief of staff for intelligence-has a.s.signed two officers, a lieutenant colonel named Parsons and a major named Ashley-to liaise with Operation Ost at Pullach."

"Frade told me that, but not the names."

"DCS-G2 thinks they should be running Operation Ost. Both Parsons and Ashley outrank Captain Cronley. See the problem?"

"Yes, sir."

"I thought it could be dealt with, since Mattingly, in the Farben Building, is a full colonel and could handle Parsons, and further that Wallace could better stand up to Parsons and Ashley than Cronley could."

Ashton nodded his understanding.

"General Gehlen disagreed. He told me something I didn't know, that First Sergeant Dunwiddie's G.o.dfather is General White, and that in private Dunwiddie refers to General White as 'Uncle Isaac.' And he reminded me of something I already knew: The President of the United States looks fondly upon Captain Cronley."

"How did Gehlen know that?"

"I don't know, but I have already learned not to underestimate General Reinhard Gehlen. Gehlen put it to me that he felt Parsons was under orders to somehow take control of Pullach, that Mattingly, who is interested in being taken into the Regular Army, is not going to defy the general staff of the U.S. Army.

"Gehlen put it to me that DCS-G2 taking over Operation Ost would be a disaster-reaching as far up as the President-inevitably about to happen. And I knew he was right."

"Jesus!"

"And he said he felt that because both Dunwiddie and Cronley had friends in high places, they would be the best people to defend Operation Ost from being swallowed by DCS-G2. And I realized Gehlen was right about that, too.

"General White is about to return to Germany from Fort Riley to a.s.sume command of the Army of Occupation police force, the U.S. Constabulary. I flew out to Fort Riley on Tuesday and talked this situation over with him. He's on board.

"On January second, the day after the Directorate of Central Intelligence is activated, certain military officers-you, for example, and Captains Cronley and Dunwiddie-"

"Captain Dunwiddie, sir?" Ashton interrupted.

"Sometime this week, First Sergeant Dunwiddie will be discharged for the convenience of the government for the purpose of accepting a commission as Captain, Cavalry, detail to Military Intelligence.

"As I was saying, Cronley and Dunwiddie-and now you-will be transferred to the Directorate. Colonel Mattingly and Major Wallace will remain a.s.signed to Counterintelligence Corps duties. I told General Greene that Colonel Frade suggested that for the time being they would be of greater use in the CIC and that I agreed with him."

When it looked as if Ashton was going to reply, Admiral Souers said, "Were you listening, Colonel, when I told you you're going to have to learn to control your tendency to ask questions out loud that should not be asked out loud?"

"Yes, sir. But may I ask a question?"

Souers nodded.

"It looks to me as if the effect of all this is that in addition to all the problems Cronley's going to have with Operation Ost, he's going to have to deal with Colonel Parsons-the Pentagon G2-and Colonel Mattingly, and maybe this CIC general, Greene, all of whom are going to try to cut him off at the knees."

Souers did not reply either directly or immediately, but finally he said, "I hope what you have learned in our conversation will be useful both when you go to Germany and later in Buenos Aires."

"Yes, sir. It will be."

Souers met Ashton's eye for a long moment, then smiled and turned and started to walk out of the room.