The Assassination Option Part 37

"Your cousin Luther?" Wallace asked incredulously.

"My cousin Luther and Odessa," Cronley confirmed, and proceeded to relate that story.

When he had finished, Wallace asked, "You realize that Odessa is the CIC's business, and none of yours?"

"I'm making it mine," Cronley said. "And the second operation I think you should know about is our getting Colonel Likharev's family out of Russia."

"Whose family out of Russia?"

"The NKGB major Sergeant Tedworth caught sneaking out of Kloster Grnau turned out to be an NKGB colonel by the name of Sergei Likharev. We s.h.i.+pped him to Argentina, where Clete and Schultz turned him . . ."

He went on to tell Wallace the details of that, finis.h.i.+ng, "That's what we were doing in Vienna, giving a Russian female NKGB agent, who also works for Mossad, a h.e.l.l of a lot of expense money.

"And just before our little chat with d.i.c.k Tracy Derwin, Claudette Colbert-"

"Hessinger's new, and I must say, very-well-put-together a.s.sistant? Is her first name really Claudette, like the movie star?"

"Yes, but she prefers to be called 'Dette.'"

"And is Freddy dallying with her?"

"No. Freddy sees her as his way out of being what he calls 'the company clerk,' and he's not going to screw that up by fooling around with her."

"She makes me really sorry there's that sacred rule forbidding officers to fool around with enlisted women," Wallace said, and then quickly added, "Just kidding, just kidding."

"Anyway, Dette told me just before we had our chat with Derwin that General Gehlen wants to see me as soon as possible. I think that's because he's heard from Seven-K . . ."

"His Soviet a.s.set?"

Cronley nodded. "A/K/A Rahil. And I've started to think of her as our a.s.set. So far we've given her a hundred thousand dollars."

"One hundred thousand?" Wallace parroted incredulously.

Cronley nodded again. "And she'll be worth every dime if she can get Likharev's family out and he stays turned."

"You think he will stay turned?"

"Yeah," Cronley said thoughtfully after a moment.

"Grat.i.tude?"

"A little of that, but primarily because . . . he's smart . . . he will realize that once we get his family to Argentina, that's not the end of it. The NKGB will know that he's alive and turned and has his family with him. And the NKGB can't just quit. Likharev knows they'll really be looking for him to make an example, pour encourager les autres, of what happens to senior NKGB officers who turn, and we're the only protection he has."

"Yeah," Wallace said.

"So, instead of going out to Schleissheim and removing the Storch from curious eyes, I'm going to have to go to Pullach."

"Can I ask about that?"

"Ask about what?"

"You and the Storchs. Now that EUCOM has been told to give DCI-Europe anything it wants, why don't you get a couple, or three or four, L-4s and get rid of the Storchs? And all the problems having them brings with it?"

"The Storch is a better airplane than the Piper Cub. And only Army aviators are allowed to fly Army airplanes, and I'm not an Army aviator . . ."

"I'd forgotten that."

". . . and I don't want two, three, or four Army aviators out here, or at the Pullach compound, seeing a lot of interesting things that are none of their business."

"Understood," Wallace said, then added, "You're good, Jim. You really try to think of everything, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. And one time in say, fifty times, I do think of everything. The other forty-nine times something I didn't think of bites me in the a.s.s."

Wallace chuckled.

"Or something comes out of the woodwork, like d.i.c.k Tracy?"

"Like d.i.c.k Tracy," Cronley agreed. "Do you think you turned him off for good?"

"Yeah. I think the more he thinks about it, the more he will decide the best way to cover his a.s.s is to stop playing d.i.c.k Tracy."

"Jesus, I hope so," Cronley said, and then stood up and walked out of his office.

[TWO].

"Where's the car?" Cronley asked Hessinger.

"Wait one, please," Hessinger said, and then, raising his voice, called, "Colbert, are you about finished in there?"

"Be right there," she called, and came out of the supply room.

"Claudette has finished four of the after-action reports," Hessinger said. "I need you to look at them as soon as possible."

"Not now, Freddy. I have to see General Gehlen. Maybe after that."

"I propose to have Claudette drive you out to Pullach. She drives, you read the after actions, and tell her what, if anything, needs to be fixed. Okay?"

Cronley didn't immediately reply.

"And then," Hessinger said, "she drives you wherever you have to go, Schleissheim, or back here, or even out to Kloster Grnau, when you're through with the general."

"Don't look so worried, Mr. Cronley," Claudette said. "I'm a pretty good driver, for a woman, if that's what's worrying you."

"Let's go. Where's the car?"

"By now it should be out front," she said. "Let me get my purse and a briefcase for the after actions."

"'Individuals in possession of doc.u.ments cla.s.sified Top Secret or above must be suitably armed when such doc.u.ments are being transported outside a secure area,'" Hessinger said.

Obviously quoting verbatim whatever Army regulation that is from memory.

"I've got my snub-nosed .38 in my purse," Claudette announced.

"Where did you get a snub-nosed .38?" Cronley asked.

"I brought mine from the ASA," Claudette said. "I thought I'd need it here. 'The officer or non-commissioned officer in charge of an ASA communications facility where Top Secret or above material is being handled, or may be handled, shall be suitably armed.'"

And that, too, was quoted verbatim from memory.

Then she added, "Don't worry, Mr. Cronley, I know how to use it. Actually, I shot Expert with it the last time I was on the range."

"And where is your .45, Mr. Cronley?" Hessinger asked.

"In my room."

"You should go get it, and not only because of the cla.s.sified doc.u.ments, if you take my meaning, as I am sure you do."

"I stand chastised," Cronley said. "I'll go get my pistol and meet you out front, Dette."

"Yes, sir."

Five minutes later, when he walked through the revolving door onto Maximilianstra.s.se, the Opel Kapitn was at the curb, with the rear door open and Claudette at the wheel.

He looked at the door, then closed it and got in the front seat beside Claudette.

She didn't say anything at first, but when they were away from the curb, she said, "I was trying to make it easy for you. Opening the rear door, I mean."

"How so?"

"Officers ride in the backseat, when enlisted women are driving."

"But we are not an officer and an enlisted woman, Miss Colbert. We are dressed as two civilian employees of the Army are dressed, and hoping the people think we work for the PX."

She chuckled.

"And I wanted to be sure that you didn't think I was trying to get cozy when I shouldn't."

"Never entered my mind. What you should be worried about-what we should be worried about-is Freddy, who is twice as smart as he looks, and he looks like Albert Einstein. Do you think . . . ?"

"I don't think he thinks anything. Read the after actions. That's what's on his mind."

He opened her briefcase and took out the after-action reports. There were four: LIKHAREV, SERGEI, COLONEL NKGB, CAPTURE OF.

LIKHAREV, SERGEI, COLONEL NKGB, RESULTS OF.

CAPTAIN CRONLEY'S INTERROGATION OF LIKHAREV, SERGEI, COLONEL NKGB, TRANSPORT TO.

ARGENTINA OF.

TEDWORTH, ABRAHAM L., FIRST SERGEANT, ATTEMPTED.

NKGB MURDER OF.

Cronley read all of them carefully, decided they were better than he expected they would be, and then made a few minor changes to each so that Freddy would know he had read them.

"Very nice, Dette," Cronley said, putting them back in her briefcase.

"I got the details of Tedworth grabbing the Russian from Tedworth," she said. "And the details of Ostrowski saving him from getting garroted from him and Ostrowski. The interrogation and transport stuff I got from Freddy."

"These are first cla.s.s," Cronley said. "I moved a couple of commas around so Freddy would see I'd really read them, but they were fine as done. You're really good at this sort of thing."

"I'm also very good at Gregg shorthand," she said. "Which is really causing me an awful problem right now."

What the h.e.l.l is she talking about?

"The reason Freddy wanted you to come to us from the ASA is because you can take shorthand. How is that a problem?"

"You remember when you came out of your office, Freddy had to call me out of the supply closet?"

Cronley nodded.

"What I was doing in there was taking shorthand."

"Of what?"

"What was being said in your office. What went on between you and Major Derwin and Major Wallace."

"What?"

"As soon as I reported to Freddy, he told me about Colonel Mattingly, who he said absolutely could not be trusted, and that while he thought Major Wallace could be trusted, he wasn't sure."

Freddy really brought her on board, didn't he?

"He's right about Mattingly, but I can tell you Major Wallace is one of the good guys."

"So I learned when I was in the supply closet."

"I still don't understand what you being in the closet has to do with you . . ." He stopped. "Jesus, Freddy bugged Mattingly's office? My office?"

"Actually, that's how I met him," she said.