The Assassination Option Part 48

"A what?" Cronley asked.

"A British ground cooperation aircraft, Jim," Gehlen explained. "With short field capability. The OSS used them often in situations like Major Wallace's."

"Which we expected to land, and then get stuck in the muddy fields," Bischoff explained.

"But instead you got Hotshot Billy in an L-4, with oversized tires," Wallace said. "He touched down and I got in and away we went."

"We were amazed when you got off the ground," Bischoff said. "You flew right over us."

"Which brings us to that," Wallace said.

"Excuse me?" Gehlen said.

"Once Bill Wilson landed that Piper Cub, I was in it in about twenty seconds, tops, and we took off," Wallace said. "That's not going to happen with Mrs. Likharev and her two kids."

"Point well taken," Gehlen said.

And now these guys are sitting around, cheerfully remembering the day Wallace almost, but not quite, got caught behind enemy lines.

Almost like friends.

Almost, h.e.l.l, really like friends.

Thank G.o.d that I got Wallace involved in this.

"It's entirely possible, even likely," Gehlen said, "that the Likharev children, and perhaps even Mrs. Likharev herself, have never been in an airplane before."

"And the children will see they are about to be separated from their mother and handed over to strangers," Mannberg added.

Cronley actually felt a chill as the epiphany began to form.

Oh, s.h.i.+t, it took me a long time even to start figuring this out.

I never even questioned how come an OSS veteran, a major, a Jedburgh, who had been Mattingly's Number Two, got himself demoted to commanding officer of a CIC detachment with no mission except to cover DCI.

Jesus, there were three majors in the XXIInd CIC in Marburg. It would have made much more sense to send any one of them to a bulls.h.i.+t job in Munich, and it makes no sense at all for them to have sent somebody like Wallace, who-what did he say that he should be doing, "advising Greene or maybe General Clay"?

Who is "them" who sent Wallace here?

"The obvious corollary of that is that Mrs. Likharev, already distressed by her situation," Gehlen said, "will be even more distressed at the prospect of her being separated from her children."

Mattingly?

Wallace knows (a) that what he was ordered to do here is a bulls.h.i.+t job, and (b) who ordered him here.

So why did he put up with it?

Because what he's really doing here is keeping an eye on me and Gehlen and company.

And Gehlen knows that. That's why he told El Jefe he'd rather not have either Mattingly or Wallace at DCI. He'd rather have me. So El Jefe had Wallace a.s.signed to the bulls.h.i.+t job.

Why?

To keep Gehlen happy.

And to put Wallace in a place where he'd have plenty of time and opportunity to keep an eye on both Gehlen and me.

And since Wallace has to know this, that means he's working for Schultz, has been working for Schultz all along.

"They, the Likharev woman and the children, will have to be tranquilized," Bischoff said matter-of-factly.

"I can see that now," Wallace said sarcastically, "the Boy Wonder here, hypodermic needle in hand, chasing Russian kids all over some Thuringian field, while your agent tries to defend him from their mother."

So that's what you think of me, "the Boy Wonder"?

Why not?

You know what a fool I am.

"There are other ways to sedate people," Gehlen said, chuckling. "But getting the Likharevs onto, into, the airplanes is a matter of concern. I suggest we think about-not talk about-the problem while we have our dinner."

"I suggest," Wallace said, "that until we get the aerials, and their coordinates, from Bill Wilson tomorrow, there's nothing much to talk or think about. One step at a time, in other words."

"Concur," Gehlen said, and stood up.

"I should have my notes typed up by the time you get back," Claudette Colbert said.

"While I appreciate your devotion to duty, Claudette," Wallace said, "that'll wait until tomorrow, too. You stick your notes in the safe and come to dinner with us."

And what's your real role in this, Claudette?

Did my innocence and navete really cause you to throw your maidenly modesty to the winds?

Or did someone tell you that I tell females with whom I am cavorting s.e.xually everything they want to know?

And if so, who told you that? Is Fat Freddy part of this?

Or have you been working for Wallace all along, and he told you to get to me through Hessinger?

[FIVE].

Suite 527 Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 0310 18 January 1946 "f.u.c.k it," Captain James D. Cronley Jr. announced and swung his legs out of bed.

He was in his underwear. He found the s.h.i.+rt he had discarded when he went to bed, and then his uniform trousers. He pulled on socks, made a decision between Shoes, Men's Low Quarter, Brown in Color, and Uribe Boots, San Antonio, Texas, choosing to jam his feet into the latter.

Then he walked to his door, unlocked it, and went down the corridor to Suite 522, where he both pushed the doorbell and knocked at the door.

A full ninety seconds later, Major Harold Wallace, attired in his underwear, opened the door.

"If you're looking for Brunhilde, Romeo, she's in 533," Major Wallace said.

"I'm looking for you, Colonel," Cronley said.

"Colonel? How much have you had to drink, Jim?"

"Not a drop. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n drop."

"What's on your mind at this obscene hour?"

"I have some questions I need to have answered."

"Such as?"

"How long have you been working for Schultz?"

"How long have I what?"

"I think you heard me, Colonel."

"I think you better go back down the corridor and jump in your little bed."

"I'm not going to do that until I get some answers," Cronley said.

Cronley gestured with his hand around the room. "And to put your mind at rest, Colonel, about the wrong people hearing those answers, I told Brunhilde to have the ASA guys sweep your suite for bugs after dinner and again at midnight."

"And if I don't choose to answer your questions?"

"Then we're going to have trouble."

"You're threatening me?"

"I'm making a statement of fact."

"Your pal Cletus warned me not to underestimate you," Wallace said, and waved him into the room.

Wallace sat in an armchair, and motioned for Cronley to sit on a couch.

"Okay. What questions have you for me?"

"Let's start with how long you've been a colonel."

"What makes you think I am a colonel? Where the h.e.l.l did you come up with that?"

"If you're going to play games with me, Colonel, we'll be here a long time."

Wallace looked at him for a long thirty seconds before replying.

"Why are you asking?"

"I figure if I get a straight answer to that, straight answers to my other questions will follow."

"And if I give you a straight answer, then what? You tell the world?"

"You know me better than that."

"I guess I knew this conversation was coming, but I didn't think it would be this soon. Been doing a lot of thinking, have you?"

"Since just before we went to dinner. I'm sorry I didn't start a lot earlier. So, what's your answer?"

"I was promoted to colonel the day after Bill Wilson pulled me out of Krlick Snnk. It was April Fools' Day, 1945. I guess that's why I remember the exact date. Is that what tipped you off?"

"Wilson's a starchy West Pointer. You called him 'Hotshot.' He doesn't like to be called Hotshot. So how were you getting away with it? Maybe because you outrank him? And if that's true . . ."

"You figured that out, did you, you clever fellow?"

"It started me thinking about what else I didn't know."

"For example?"

"You brought up 'my pal Cletus.' Does he know what's going on here?"

"What do you think?" Wallace said sarcastically.

"You met him before-him and El Jefe-before the day you came to Marburg with him and Mattingly, to pick up Frau von Wachtstein?"

Wallace nodded.

"In-the middle of 1943, I forget exactly when-Wild Bill Donovan decided that David Bruce, the OSS station chief in London, should be brought up to speed on what was happening in Argentina. Things that could not be written down.

"Bruce couldn't leave London, so he sent me, as sort of a walking notebook. I spent three weeks there with Cletus and El Jefe. Which is how, since we are laying all our secrets on the table, you got in the spook business."

"I don't understand."

"When we got back to OSS Forward-the Schlosshotel Kronberg in Taunus-that night, after picking up Frau von Wachtstein, we-Mattingly, Frade, and I-had a private dinner. Toward the end of it, Mattingly mentioned the trouble we were having finding an officer to command Tiny's Troopers, who were going to provide security not only for Kloster Grnau, but for the Pullach compound when we got that up and running."

"Why didn't you just get Tiny a commission?"

"All I knew about Tiny at the time was that he was a first sergeant who'd got himself a Silver Star in the Battle of the Bulge. I didn't know he'd almost graduated from Norwich. And I certainly didn't know he called General White 'Uncle Isaac.' I'm now sure Mattingly did, and knew that Lieutenant Dunwiddie would ask questions First Sergeant Dunwiddie couldn't ask. Mattingly likes to be in control."

"You don't like him much, do you?"