The Assassination Option Part 50

XI.

[ONE].

U.S. Army Airfield B-6 Sonthofen, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1125 18 January 1946 The olive-drab Stinson L-5, which had large "Circle C" Constabulary insignia painted on the engine nacelle, came in very low and very slow and touched down no more than fifty feet from the end of the runway. The pilot then quickly got the tail wheel on the ground and braked hard. The airplane stopped.

The pilot, Captain James D. Cronley Jr., looked over his shoulder at his instructor pilot, Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, and inquired, "Again?"

"If you went around again, could you improve on that landing?"

"I don't think I could."

"Neither do I. Actually, that wasn't too bad for someone who isn't even an Army aviator."

Cronley didn't reply.

"How many tries is that?" Williams said.

"I've lost count."

"Well, whatever the number, I think I have put my life at enormous risk sufficiently for one day. Call the tower and get taxi instructions to Hangar Three."

Cronley did so.

When he had finished talking to the tower, and they were approaching Hangar Three, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson said, "I didn't hear the proper response, which would have been, 'Yes, sir,' when I told you to call the tower."

"Sorry."

"And the proper response to my last observation should have been, 'Sorry, sir. No excuse, sir.'"

"With all possible respect, go f.u.c.k yourself, Colonel, sir."

Wilson laughed delightedly.

"I wondered how long it would take before you said something like that," he said. "Your patience with your IP during this phase of your training has been both commendable and unexpected."

Cronley, smiling, shook his head and said, "Jesus Christ!"

Wilson asked innocently, "Yes, my son?"

A sergeant wanded them to a parking s.p.a.ce on the tarmac between another L-5 and a Piper L-4.

They got out of the Stinson. Wilson watched as Cronley put wheel chocks in place and tied it down.

"Now comes the hard part," Wilson said. "Making decisions. Deciding what to do is always harder than actually doing it."

He waved Cronley toward a small door in the left of Hanger Three's large sliding doors.

Inside, as Cronley expected them to be, were both of what he thought of as "his Storchs." They had been flown from Kloster Grnau, with a stop in Munich, to Sonthofen that morning by Kurt Schrder and Max Ostrowski.

They were being painted. Perhaps more accurately, "unpainted." Wilson had told him what was planned for the aircraft: Since it might be decided-Wilson had emphasized "might"-to use the Storchs to pick up Likharev's family in East Germany, the planes would have to go in "black," which meant all markings that could connect the planes with the U.S. government would have to be removed.

That would have to be done now. There would not be time for the process if they waited for a decision about which airplanes would be used.

This meant the XXIIIrd CIC identification Cronley had painted on the vertical stabilizer after he'd gotten the planes from Wilson had to be removed-not painted over. Similarly, so did the Constabulary insignia Wilson had painted over when he gave the planes to Cronley. And the Star and Bar insignia of a U.S. military aircraft painted on the fuselage had to go, too. Removed, not over-painted. And when that was done, both would have to be painted non-glossy black.

When Cronley stepped into the hangar through the small door, Schrder and Ostrowski were sitting, Ostrowski backwards, on folding metal chairs watching soldier mechanics spray-painting the vertical stabilizer on one of the Storchs.

When Cronley started for them, Wilson touched his arm and pointed toward the hangar office.

"Our little chat first. You can chat with them later."

Cronley was surprised when he entered Wilson's office to see Major Harold Wallace and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg. Wallace was standing next to a corkboard to which an aerial chart, a standard Corps of Engineers map, and a great many aerial photos were pinned. Mannberg was sitting at Wilson's desk.

Wilson was apparently as surprised to see them as Cronley was.

"To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" Wilson asked.

Wallace gestured at the corkboard.

"I decided the best place to do this was here."

"How'd you get here?"

"You see that C-45 parked on the tarmac?"

"Yes, I saw it."

"I wouldn't want this to get around, but I have friends in the Air Corps," Wallace said. "I borrowed that."

"The Air Corps loaned you a C-45?"

"I thought we might need one."

"Which means two Air Corps pilots get to know a lot more than I'm comfortable with?" Wilson said. "Or at the very least will ask questions we can't have them asking."

"Oddly enough, Colonel," Wallace said, "those thoughts occurred to me, too. So as soon as we landed here . . ."

He sounds like a colonel dealing with a lieutenant colonel who has annoyed him.

". . . I loaded the C-45 pilots into two of your puddle jumpers and had them flown back to Frstenfeldbruck. You can fly C-45s, right?"

Wilson nodded.

"So can I," Cronley blurted.

Wallace looked at him.

"I find that very interesting. If true, it may solve one of our problems. But first things first. How did he do in flight school?"

"He's almost as good a pilot as he thinks he is."

"In other words, in your professional judgment, he could safely land an L-5-or an L-4 or one of those newly painted airplanes out there in the hangar-on some remote field or back road in Thuringia, load someone who probably won't want to go flying aboard, and take off again?"

"Yes, he could," Wilson said.

"I'm really sorry to hear that," Wallace said. "It would have been better if I could have told him, 'Sorry, you flunked flight school. I can't let you risk getting either Mrs. Likharev or the kiddies killed.'"

"If I didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't insist on flying one of the Storchs," Cronley said.

"You wouldn't insist, Captain Cronley?" Wallace asked sarcastically.

I am being put in my place.

In a normal situation, he would be right, and I would be wrong.

But whatever this situation is, it's not normal.

In this Through-the-Looking-Gla.s.s world, allowing myself to be put in my place-just do what you're told, Cronley-would be dereliction of duty.

"Yes, sir. Sir, while I really appreciate the a.s.sistance and expert advice you and Colonel Wilson are giving me, the last I heard, I was still chief, DCI-Europe, and the decisions to do, or not do, something are mine to make."

"You've considered, I'm sure, that you could be relieved as chief, DCI-Europe?" Wallace asked icily.

"I think of that all the time, sir. As I'm sure you do. But, until that happens . . ."

"I realize you don't have much time in the Army, Captain, but certainly somewhere along the way the term 'insubordinate' must have come to your attention."

"Yes, sir. I know what it means. Willful disobedience of a superior officer. My immediate superior officer is the director of the Directorate of Central Intelligence, Admiral Souers. Isn't that your understanding of my situation?"

Wallace glowered at him for a long fifteen seconds.

"We are now going to change the subject," he said finally. "Which is not, as I am sure both you and Colonel Wilson understand, the same thing as dropping the subject. We will return to it in due course."

Wallace looked at him expectantly.

He's waiting for me to say, "Yes, sir."

But since I have just challenged his authority to give me orders, I can't do that.

So what do I do?

His mouth went on automatic.

"Sure. Why not?" he said.

Cronley saw Wallace's face tighten, but he didn't respond directly.

But he will eventually.

"Why are you so determined to use the Storchs?" Wallace asked.

"Why don't you think it's a good idea?"

"Okay. Worst-case scenario. a.s.suming you are flying an L-4 or an L-5. You land but can't, for any one of a dozen reasons that pop into my mind, take off. There you are with a dozen Mongolians aiming their PPShs at you. Getting the picture?"

"What's a-what you said?"

"A Russian submachine gun. The Pistolet Pulyemet Shpagin. It comes with a seventy-five-round drum magazine."

"Okay. What was the question?"

"They are probably going to ask what you are doing on that back road. My theory is that it would be best to be nave and innocent. I suggest you would look far more nave and innocent if you were wearing ODs, with second lieutenant's gold bars on your epaulets and flying a Piper or a Stinson than you would wearing anything and flying a Storch with no markings.

"You could say you were a liaison pilot with the Fourteenth Constabulary Regiment in Fritzlar, flying from there to, say, Wetzlar, and got lost and then had engine trouble and had to land."

Cronley didn't reply.

After a moment, Wallace said, "Please feel free to comment on my worst-case scenario."

"You mean I can ask why it didn't mention Mrs. Likharev and the boys? I thought they were the sole reason for this exercise. Where are they in your scenario when the Russians are aiming their PP-whatevers at me?"

"You insolent sonofab.i.t.c.h, you!" Wallace flared, and immediately added: "Sorry. You pushed me over the edge."

Cronley didn't reply.

"Okay, smart-a.s.s. Let's hear your scenario. Your best-case scenario," Wallace said.

"Okay. We-Ostrowski, Schrder, me, both Storchs, and a couple of ASA radio guys-are in a hangar in Fritzlar. If they don't have a hangar, we'll build one like the one we built at Kloster Grnau, out of tents. We're hiding the Storchs is the idea.

"We hear from Seven-K, who tells us at which of the possible pickup points she and the Likharevs will be and when. We tell her, 'Okay.'

"Ostrowski and I get in one Storch, Schrder in the other. We fly across the border, pick up Mrs. Likharev and the boys and bring them back to Fritzlar. I haven't quite figured out how to get them from Fritzlar to Rhine-Main yet. Maybe in that C-45 you borrowed from the Air Force."

"And where in your best-case scenario are the Russians with the PPShs in my worst-case scenario?" Wallace asked, softly but sarcastically.

"We are going to be in and out so fast that unless they're following Seven-K down those remote roads, the Russians probably won't even know we were there."