The Assassination Option Part 38

"Find someplace to pull off the road," Cronley said. "We're almost to Pullach, and I want to finish this conversation before we get there."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir"?

She turned onto a dirt road and drove far enough down it so the Kapitn could not be seen from the paved road.

"You're not supposed to sit with the engine idling in a Kapitn," she said, almost as if to herself. "But it's as cold as that witch's teat we hear so much about, so to h.e.l.l with it. I'll leave it running."

"You were telling me how you met Freddy," Cronley said.

"Before you moved the ASA Munich station into the Pullach compound, Freddy started hanging out around it. Around me. I thought he wanted to get into my pants. I knew who he was-that he was in the mysterious, not-on-the-books CIC detachment-and I thought just maybe he could help me to get out of the ASA at least into his branch of the CIC, so I didn't run him off.

"Finally, when he thought it was safe, he took me to the movies. After the movie-it was They Were Expendable. You know, Robert Montgomery and John Wayne? About PT boats in the Philippines?"

"I remember the movie," Cronley said.

"So after the movie, when Freddy was driving me back to my kaserne-in this car, by the way-he pulls off onto a dark street, and I thought, here it comes, and started asking myself how much I really wanted out of the ASA and into the intelligence business.

"But what he whipped out was his CIC credentials. He said what he was going to say to me was cla.s.sified. Then he said he had reason to want to bug two offices, and he didn't want anyone to know he was doing it."

"Why did he go to you for that?" Cronley asked.

"The ASA-Army Security Agency-started out making sure n.o.body was tapping Army telephones. It went from that to making sure n.o.body was bugging Army offices, and finally to intercepting radio signals. Freddy knew that. You didn't?"

"I must have slept through that lecture at the CIC School. Or chalk it up to my all-around navete, innocence, about things I ought to know."

"Oddly enough, some women find navete and innocence to be charming, even erotic, characteristics in younger men. But to fill in the blanks in your education, the ASA teaches ASAers courses in how to find bugs. It therefore follows if you know how to take them out, you know how to put them in. Verstehen Sie?"

Actually, she should have said du. Du is the intimate form of Sie. And G.o.d knows we have been intimate.

This is not the time for language lessons.

"Okay, so where did you get the bugs you put in for Freddy?"

"There's a rumor going around that the ASA sometimes installs bugs, too. Anyway, I got half a dozen bugs from the supply room. And installed them in what was then Mattingly's office, now yours, and in Wallace's. And Freddy promised to see what he could do about getting me transferred out of ASA."

"When did you put these bugs in?"

"A long time ago. Or what seems like a long time ago. You were then a second lieutenant in charge of the guards at the mysterious Kloster Grnau."

"That does seem like a long time ago, doesn't it?" Cronley said. "Which means Freddy regularly bugged both Mattingly and Wallace."

"He did. You didn't know this?"

Cronley shook his head.

"And today he ordered you to . . . what's the word, transcribe? . . ."

Colbert nodded.

". . . my conversation with Major Derwin?"

"Right. Which is the original source of my loyalty dilemma. And it gets worse."

"Explain that to me, now that we've already established that I'm nave and innocent."

"When Freddy said, 'Derwin worries me. Get in there and get a record of what's said, and don't let Cronley know,' that put me in a h.e.l.l of a spot. Freddy lived up to his end of his deal with me-there I was in triangles-and I obviously owed my loyalty to him.

"On the other hand-and this has nothing, well, almost nothing, to do with you sweeping me off my feet with that innocence and navete I find so erotic-you got me out of the ASA, you're my boss and Freddy's boss . . . Getting the picture? So what do I do? Who gets my loyalty?"

"You did the right thing to tell me about this," he said.

"Even if that was betraying Freddy's trust in me? Even if that means you will no longer trust him?"

"Pay attention. Freddy didn't tell me about the bugs because if he got caught, he could pa.s.s a lie-detector test saying I knew nothing about the bugs. And he told you not to let me know you were listening to the bugs because he had a good idea, was worried about, Derwin's interest in me. And he really didn't want me to know you heard either what Derwin asked me, or what my answers were."

"You mean you were fooling around with Colonel Schumann's wife?"

And here we are at decision time. Do I tell her everything, or not?

I don't have any choice.

She's either part of this team, or she's not.

And I can't send her back to the ASA because (a) she's already learned too much about Freddy, and now about me, and (b) I believe what they say about h.e.l.l having no fury like a p.i.s.sed-off female, and (c) she would have every right to be thoroughly p.i.s.sed off because she's done nothing wrong.

So once again, it's f.u.c.k Ludwig Mannberg's firm belief that if you really want to trust your intuition, don't.

"Turn that around, Dette. Rachel Schumann was fooling around with me. More accurately, she was making a three-star fool of me."

"She was into the erotic attraction of your innocence and navete, is that what you're saying?"

"In hindsight, I don't think she liked me at all. I think she held me in great contempt . . . and, from her viewpoint, rightly so. She was playing me like a violin, to coin a phrase."

"Her viewpoint?"

"That of an NKGB operative. And for all I know, an NKGB officer. Probably an NKGB officer."

"You're telling me this colonel's wife was a Russian spy?"

"Him, too."

"My G.o.d!"

"Welcome to the wonderful world of intelligence."

"What information did she want from you?"

"Whatever she could get about Kloster Grnau and Operation Ost generally, and whatever she could get about Likharev specifically."

"You're implying she got it. From you."

"She got what she wanted to know about Likharev. From me."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that he wasn't buried in an unmarked grave at Kloster Grnau, despite an elaborate burial we conducted for him in the middle of the night. That he was in fact on his way to Argentina. And because I gave her that information, people died and were seriously wounded-Americans and Argentines-in Argentina, and the NKGB d.a.m.ned near managed to take out Likharev."

"You're sure about all this?"

"I'm sure about all this."

"Then there was something fishy about the explosion that killed this woman? Her and her husband?"

"Listen carefully. The only thing I know is that there was an explosion. That said explosion was investigated by everybody and his brother, including Major Wallace, who thought, still thinks, which we had better not forget, that Schumann was a fine officer and a good friend-and nothing fishy was uncovered."

"But you have your suspicions, right?"

"Next question?"

"So what do I do with my Gregg notes?"

"Transcribe them accurately and in full, give them to Freddy, who already knows everything, and don't tell Freddy we had this little chat. Questions?"

"No, sir," she said, then, "Yes, one. A big one. Where the h.e.l.l did I get the idea you're nave and innocent?"

"Does that mean I've lost the erotic appeal that went along with that?"

"Perish the thought! I meant nothing of the kind!"

"Put the car in gear, please, Miss Colbert. Before we get in trouble, we better go see the general."

She did so, and then parroted, "'We better go see the general'?"

"Yeah. I think it's important that you get to know one another. And when we finish, you can bring Freddy up to speed on what he had to say. Thereby sparing me from having to do so."

[THREE].

Office of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound Pullach, Bavaria The American Zone of Occupied Germany 1205 16 January 1946 As they were pa.s.sing through the final roadblock and into the inner compound, the ma.s.sive sergeant manning it, when he was sure Colbert was concentrating on the striped barrier pole as it rose, winked at Cronley and gave him a thumbs-up in appreciation of her physical attributes. Cronley winked back.

When they went into the "Military Government" building, they found General Reinhard Gehlen, Colonel Ludwig Mannberg, Major Konrad Bischoff, and Captain Chauncey Dunwiddie sitting around a coffee table.

"Oh, I'm so glad you could finally find time for us in your busy schedule," Dunwiddie greeted Cronley sarcastically. "Where the h.e.l.l were you?"

Cronley's mouth went on automatic: "'Where the h.e.l.l were you, sir?' is the way you ask that question, Captain Dunwiddie," he snapped.

His anger dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. "What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you, Tiny? You got out of the wrong side of the bed?" He turned to Gehlen and the others. "Sorry to be late. Couldn't be helped. I was being interrogated by Major Derwin."

"The CIC IG?" Tiny asked incredulously. "What was that about?"

"This is getting out of hand," Cronley said. "Time out." He made the Time out signal with his hands.

"This meeting is called to order by the chief, DCI-Europe, who yields to himself the floor. First order of business: Gentlemen, this is Miss Claudette Colbert. She is now Mr. Hessinger's deputy for administration. She comes to us from the ASA, where she held all the proper security clearances. You already know Colonel Mannberg, Dette, and you may know Captain Dunwiddie. That's former Major Konrad Bischoff, of General Gehlen's staff, and this, of course, is General Gehlen."

"Mannberg has been telling me about you, Fraulein," Gehlen said, and bobbed his head. "Welcome!"

"Your call, General," Cronley said. "Do you want to start with why you wanted to see me, or why I was delayed getting out here?"

"Actually, I'm curious about the major," Gehlen said. "Derwin, you said?"

"Yes, sir. Major Thomas G. Derwin. When Colonel Schumann died, Major Derwin was sent from the CIC School to replace him as the CIC/ASA inspector general. When I was a student at the CIC School, I was in Major Derwin's cla.s.ses on the Techniques of Surveillance. Major Derwin was known to me and my fellow students as 'd.i.c.k Tracy.'"

"I gather he is not one of your favorite people," Gehlen said drily. "What did he want?"

"He said he wanted to ask me about credible rumors he'd heard about (a) my having an 'inappropriate relations.h.i.+p' with the late Mrs. Schumann, and (b) that I had attempted to murder Colonel Schumann at Kloster Grnau."

"And what did you tell him, Jim?" Mannberg asked.

"I asked Major Wallace to join us. He explained to Major Derwin what had happened at Kloster Grnau when Colonel Schumann had insisted on going in, and told Major Derwin that the idea I had had an inappropriate relations.h.i.+p with Mrs. Schumann was absurd."

"Jim," Tiny said, "are you sure you want Sergeant Colbert to hear this?"

"She already has. And since she's wearing triangles, why don't you stop calling her 'Sergeant'?"

"And then?" General Gehlen asked.

"Major Wallace asked Major Derwin from whom he'd heard the rumors, and after some resistance, Derwin produced a typewritten letter he said had been put in his box at the Park Hotel, where he lives."

"Who was the letter from?" Gehlen asked.

Cronley held up his hand in a Wait gesture.

"It began by saying the water heater explosion was suspicious, and the investigation 'superficial.' That set Wallace off. He said that he personally investigated the explosion, that he got there before the CID did, and there was nothing suspicious about it.

"He really lost his temper. He said the only reason he wasn't getting on the telephone to General Greene, to tell him what an a.s.shole Derwin was-"

"He used that word?"

"Did he, Dette?"