The Assassination Option Part 41

"It looks like you're going to have to, Miss Colbert. Get on the horn to Captain Dunwiddie and tell him (a) this is not a suggestion, then (b) he's to get out to Kloster Grnau right away. He is to tell Max Ostrowski to fly him and Kurt Schrder-"

"Excuse me, sir. I want to get this right. Kurt Schrder is the other Storch pilot, correct?"

"Correct. Tell him to fly here-I'm at Schleissheim, just landed here-at first light, and I will explain things when they're here."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right on it."

"Oh, almost forgot. Tell Captain Dunwiddie to wear pinks and greens and to bring a change of uniform."

"Yes, sir, pinks and greens. Is there anything else you need, sir?"

"I think you know what that is. Do you suppose you could bring it to my room? I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"It will be waiting for you, sir."

[THREE].

Suite 527 Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1935 16 January 1946 "As much as I would like to continue this discussion of office business with you, Miss Colbert," Cronley said, "I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast and need sustenance. Let's go downstairs and get some dinner."

"And while I can think of nothing I'd rather do than continue to discuss office business with you like this, Captain Cronley . . ."

"You mean in a horizontal position, and unenc.u.mbered by clothing?"

". . . and seem to have somehow worked up an appet.i.te myself, I keep hearing this small, still voice of reason crying out, 'Not smart! Not smart!'"

"I infer that you would react negatively to my suggestion that we get some dinner and then come back and resume our discussion of office business?"

"Not smart! Not smart!"

"Oddly enough, I have given the subject some thought. Actually, a good deal of thought."

"And?"

"It seems to me that the best way to deal with our problem is for me to treat you like one of the boys. By that I mean while I don't discuss office business with them as we do, if I'm here at lunchtime, or dinnertime, and Freddy is here, or Major Wallace, or for that matter, General Gehlen, I sometimes have lunch or dinner with them. Not every time, but often. I'm suggesting that having an infrequent dinner-or even a frequent dinner-with you would be less suspicious than conspicuously not doing so. Take my point?"

"I don't know, Jim."

"Additionally, I think if we listen to your small, still voice of reason when it pipes up, as I suspect it frequently will, and do most of the things it suggests, we can maintain the secret of our forbidden pa.s.sion."

"It will be a disaster for both of us if we can't."

"I know."

After a moment, she shrugged and said, "I am hungry. Put your clothes on."

"With great reluctance."

"Yeah."

Lieutenant Colonel George H. Parsons and Major Warren W. Ashley were at the headwaiter's table just inside the door to the dining room when Cronley and Colbert walked in.

"Oh, Cronley," Parsons said, "in for dinner, are you?"

Actually I'm here to steal some silverware and a couple of napkins.

"Right. Good evening, Colonel. Major."

The headwaiter appeared.

"Table for four, gentlemen?"

"Two," Cronley said quickly. "We're not together."

"But I think we should be," Parsons said. "I would much rather look at this charming young woman over my soup than at Major Ashley."

The headwaiter took that as an order.

"If you'll follow me, please?"

They followed him to a table.

"You are, I presume, going to introduce your charming companion?" Colonel Parsons said, as a waiter distributed menus.

"Miss Colbert, may I introduce Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley?"

"We've met," Claudette said. "At the Pullach compound."

"I thought you looked familiar," Ashley said. "You're the ASA sergeant, right?"

"She was," Cronley answered for her. "Now she's a CIC special agent of the Twenty-third CIC, on indefinite temporary duty with DCI."

"I see," Parsons said.

"But, as I'm sure you'll understand, we don't like to talk much about that," Cronley said.

"Of course," Parsons said. "Well, let me say I'll miss seeing you at the Pullach compound." He turned to Cronley. "Sergeant . . . I suppose I should say 'Miss' . . . ?"

"Yes, I think you should," Cronley said.

"Miss Colbert handled our cla.s.sified traffic with Was.h.i.+ngton," Parsons went on. "Which now causes me to wonder how secure they have been."

"I'm sure, Colonel, that they were, they are, as secure as the ASA can make them," Cronley said. "Or was that some sort of an accusation?"

"Certainly not," Parsons said.

Cronley chuckled.

"Did I miss something, Mr. Cronley?"

"What I was thinking, Colonel, was 'Eyes Only.'"

"Excuse me?"

"Way back from the time I was a second lieutenant, every time I saw that I wondered, 'Do they really believe that?' Actually, 'They can't really believe that.'"

"I don't think I follow you," Parsons said.

"I know I don't," Ashley said.

"Okay. Let's say General Eisenhower in Frankfurt wants to send a secret message to General Clay in Berlin. He doesn't want anybody else to see it, so he makes it 'Eyes Only, General Clay.'"

"Which means only General Clay gets to see it," Ashley said. "What's funny about that?"

"I'll tell you. Eisenhower doesn't write, or type, the message himself. He dictates it to his secretary or whatever. He or she thus gets to see the message. Then it goes to the message center, where the message center sergeant gets to read it. Then it goes to the ASA for encryption, and the encryption officer and encryption sergeant get to read it. Then it's transmitted to Berlin, where the ASA people get it and read it, and decrypt it, then it goes to the message center, where they read it, and finally it goes to General Clay's office, where his secretary or his aide reads it, and then says, 'General, sir, there is an Eyes Only for you from General Eisenhower. He wants to know . . .' So how many pairs of eyes is that, six, eight, ten?"

"You have a point, Cronley," Colonel Parsons said. "Frankly, I never thought about that. But that obviously can't be helped. The typists, cryptographers, et cetera, are an integral part of the message transmission process. All you can do is make sure that all of them have the appropriate security clearances."

"That's it. But why 'Eyes only'?"

"I have no answer for that," Parsons said. "But how do you feel about someone, say, the cryptographer, sharing what he-or she-has read in an Eyes Only, or any cla.s.sified message, with someone not in the transmission process?"

"Do you remember, Colonel, what Secretary of State Henry Stimson said when he shut down the State Department's crypta.n.a.lytic office?"

"Yes, I do. 'Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail.' I think that was a bit nave."

"You know what I thought when I heard that?" Cronley asked rhetorically. "And I think it applies here."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Major Ashley said.

"I wondered, 'How can I be sure you're a gentleman whose mail I shouldn't read unless I read your mail?'"

"How does this apply here?" Ashley asked sarcastically.

"Hypothetically?"

"Hypothetically or any other way."

"Okay. Let's say, hypothetically, that when Miss Colbert here was in charge of encrypting one of your messages to the Pentagon, and had to read it in the proper discharge of her duties, she reads 'If things go well, the bomb I placed in the Pentagon PX will go off at 1330. Signature Ashley.'"

"This is ridiculous!" Ashley snapped.

"You asked how it applies," Cronley said. "Let me finish."

Ashley didn't reply.

"What is she supposed to do? Pretend she hasn't read it? Decide on her own that it's some sort of sick joke and can be safely ignored? Decide that it's real, but she can't say anything because she's not supposed to read what she's encrypting? In which case the bomb will go off as scheduled. Or go to a superior officer-one with all the proper security clearances-and tell him?"

"This is absurd," Ashley said.

"It's thought-provoking," Colonel Parsons said, and then turned to Colbert.

"See anything you like on the menu, Miss Colbert?"

"My problem, Colonel, is that I don't see anything on the menu I don't like."

"Shall we have a little wine with our dinner?" Colonel Parsons asked. "Where's the wine list?"

[FOUR].

Suite 527 Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 2105 16 January 1946 "Stop that," Claudette said. "I didn't come here for that."

"I thought you'd changed your mind."

"Are you crazy?"

"I don't know about crazy," Cronley said. "How about 'overcome with l.u.s.t'?"

"You just about admitted to Colonel Parsons that I've been feeding you his messages to the Pentagon."

"The moment he saw you with me, he figured that out himself," Cronley said. "I never thought he was slow."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"He would have heard sooner or later that you defected to DCI."

"Jimmy, please don't do that. You know what it does to me."

"That's why I'm doing it."

"So what's going to happen now?"

"Well, after I get your tunic off, I'll start working on your s.h.i.+rt."