The Assassination Option Part 55

"Whatever I'm ordered to do, sir."

"Jimmy, what the h.e.l.l are you up to?" Lieutenant Moriarty asked.

"Put a cork in it, Bonehead," Cronley said.

"Same question," Dunwiddie said. "Lieutenant, Captain Cronley is known for his unusual-some say sick-sense of humor. Don't take him seriously."

"Yes, sir," Winters said, visibly relieved.

"I'm dead serious right now," Cronley said. "Answer the question, Lieutenant. Exactly what kind of flying do you do?"

"Sir, I do whatever is expected of me as an Army aviator."

"Like flying the Hesse/Thuringia border?"

Winter's face tightened, but he did not reply.

"With a photographer in the backseat taking pictures of the picturesque Thuringian countryside?"

Winters stood up.

"The captain will understand that I am not at liberty to discuss the subject he mentions. The lieutenant begs the captain's permission to withdraw."

"Sit down, Lieutenant," Cronley ordered. When Winters remained standing, Cronley said, "That was not a suggestion."

Winters sat down.

"Clever fellow that I am, I suspected it was you the moment I saw the West Point ring. And, of course, the wings."

"Sir?"

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, Jim?" Dunwiddie said, not at all pleasantly.

"You're an intelligence officer . . . and on that subject, show Lieutenant Winters your credentials. And that's not a suggestion, either."

"Jesus!" Tiny said, but handed Winters his credentials folder.

"You may show that to Mrs. Winters, Lieutenant, but you are cautioned not to tell anyone what you saw."

Mrs. Winters's eyes widened when she examined the credentials.

"Now, where were we?" Cronley asked rhetorically. "Oh, yeah. Tell me, Captain Dunwiddie, if you were a West Pointer, and a lieutenant colonel of artillery, and an aviator, and required the services of another aviator to fly a mission . . ."

"Along the border," Dunwiddie picked up. "That you didn't want anybody talking about . . ."

". . . wouldn't you turn first to another graduate of Hudson High who was also an artilleryman?"

Dunwiddie shook his head.

"I thought you were just being a pr- giving him a hard time."

"That thought never entered my mind," Cronley said. "Because if he turned out to be who I thought he was, I wanted to be very nice to him, because first thing tomorrow morning he's going to take me border-flying again. I want to see what he saw and photographed."

"Sir, I couldn't do that without authorization," Winters said.

"Did Colonel Fishburn authorize the flights you already made?"

"No, sir. But-"

"A certain lieutenant colonel, whose name we shall not mention, told you it was all right, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he tell you why we were interested in the fields and back roads of Thuringia?"

"Yes, sir. He said that somebody was going to land a light airplane . . ."

"I'm one of them," Cronley said. "Now, we can go to Colonel Fishburn, which you will note Hot-the unnamed lieutenant colonel . . . did not do . . . and show him our credentials, following which I'm sure he will tell you to take me flying down the border. But if we do that, his sergeant major will hear about it, and so will his wife, and all the girls in what Captain Dunwiddie calls the Officers' Ladies Intelligence Network . . . which would not be a good thing."

Lieutenant Winters looked at Cronley, expressionlessly, for twenty seconds.

Then he said, "Sir, if you'll tell me where you're staying, I'll pick you up at 0530, which will give us time for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich before we take off at first light."

XII.

[ONE].

Hangar Two U.S. Air Force Base, Fritzlar, Hesse American Zone of Occupation, Germany 0840 19 January 1946 "What the h.e.l.l is that?" Lieutenant Thomas Winters, Artillery, inquired of Captain James D. Cronley as they taxied up to the hangar in the L-5.

"I believe it is a C-47, which is the military version of the Douglas DC-3. I'm surprised you don't know that."

There was indeed a C-47 sitting in front of Hangar Two. It had the Constabulary insignia on the nose, which surprised Cronley.

"I mean that funny-looking black airplane they're pus.h.i.+ng into the hangar," Winters said, in exasperation.

"I don't see a funny-looking black airplane," Cronley replied. "Possibly because I know that funny-looking black airplanes like that are used only in cla.s.sified operations I'm not supposed to talk about."

As Winters parked the L-5 and shut it down, a lieutenant wearing Constabulary insignia and aviator's wings walked up to it and saluted.

Cronley got out of the Stinson and returned the salute.

"Colonel Wilson's compliments, gentlemen," the lieutenant announced. "The colonel would be pleased if you would join him aboard the general's aircraft."

"Lieutenant," Cronley asked, straight-faced, "is that the colonel some people call 'Hotshot Billy'?"

"Only full colonels or better can do that, sir," the lieutenant replied. "Anyone of lesser rank who uses that description can expect to die a slow and painful death."

"Lead on, Lieutenant," Cronley said.

A nattily turned-out Constabulary corporal, who looked as if he was several months short of his eighteenth birthday, was standing guard at the steps leading to the rear door of the aircraft. He saluted, then went quickly up the steps and opened the door, which was, Cronley noted, a "civilian" pa.s.senger door, rather than the much wider cargo door of C-47 aircraft.

The sergeant came down the steps and Cronley, followed by Winters, went up them.

The interior of the aircraft was not the bare-bones, exposed-ribs interior of a standard Gooney Bird. Nor even the insula tion-covered ribs and rows of seats in the interior of a DC-3 in the service of, say, Eastern Airlines. There were eight leather-upholstered armchairs and two tables in the fuselage, making it look not unlike a living room.

General White was not in his aircraft, but Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, Major Harold Wallace, and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were, sitting in the armchairs.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Cronley said.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been?" Wilson demanded.

Cronley saw on Lieutenant Winters's face that he was now questioning the wisdom of their flight.

"Lieutenant Winters was kind enough to give me a tour of the Thuringian-Hessian border." He turned to Winters. "I believe you know the colonel, Lieutenant," he said. "And this officer is Major Harold Wallace of the Twenty-third CIC Detachment, and this gentleman is Herr Ludwig Mannberg of the Sd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation."

Winters saluted and Wallace and Mannberg offered him their hands.

Wallace ordered Cronley and Winters, who were standing awkwardly on the slanted floor of the airplane, into armchairs with a pointed finger. Wilson waited impatiently until they were seated, and then asked, rather unpleasantly, "Cronley, you're not suggesting that Winters suggested this aerial tour of the border?"

"No, sir, I'm not. But I took one look at him and I could see that Lieutenant Winters is a fine pilot, a credit to the United States Military Academy and Army Aviation generally, and decided on the spot that I would recruit him for service with DCI-Europe. Then I asked him to give me an aerial tour of the area."

"You decided to recruit him for DCI?" Wilson asked incredulously.

"He can do it," Wallace said, smiling. "I think the phrase is 'drunk with newfound authority.'"

"I mention that now because I wanted you to know you can speak freely in his presence about our current enterprise," Cronley said. "He knows all about it. Well, maybe not all about it, but a good deal about it."

"And how much did you tell Colonel Fishburn about our current enterprise?" Wallace asked.

"Essentially nothing, sir. When Captain Dunwiddie and I made our manners to the colonel, he led us to believe that Colonel Wilson had told him that he would explain everything to him when he got here."

"So you didn't tell Colonel Fishburn that you wanted Lieutenant Winters to fly you up and down the border?" Wilson asked.

"When we made our manners to Colonel Fishburn, I hadn't met Lieutenant Winters. We met him at dinner last night."

"In other words, Colonel Fishburn doesn't know that you have been using one of his airplanes and one of his pilots to fly the border?"

"As far as I know, sir, he does not."

"And you didn't think you should tell him?"

"I thought he might object, and I wanted to make that tour."

"I will be d.a.m.ned!" Wilson said.

"Why do you want the lieutenant in DCI?" Wallace asked.

"I thought it would be nice if at least one of the pilots in the aviation section of DCI-Europe was a bona fide U.S. Army aviator."

"I didn't know there was an aviation section of DCI-Europe," Wallace said.

"As of today, there is. Or there will be as soon as I can sign the appropriate doc.u.ments, which by now Fat Freddy and Brunhilde should have prepared."

"You're going to have an aviation section for the Storchs, is that what you're saying?"

"I'm going to have an aviation section in which I can hide the Storchs. There will also be other aircraft, two L-4s or L-5s and, if General Greene can pry one loose from the Air Force, a C-45. I'm going to tell him just as soon as I can get on the SIGABA, which I think should be up and running by now."

"He's unbelievable! My G.o.d, he's only a captain!" Colonel Wilson said. "A very young and junior captain! And he's going to tell a general officer what he wants?"

"What's that Jewish word, Billy?" Wallace asked.

Cronley saw on Winters's face that he had picked up on Major Wallace calling Lieutenant Colonel Wilson by the diminutive of his Christian name.

"'Chutzpah'?" Wallace went on, "Meaning audacity? Isn't that what Patton was always saying, 'L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!'?"

"It also means unmitigated effrontery or impudence," Wilson said.

"I remember when you were a captain, they said the same things about you," Wallace said. "And I remember your defense: 'I did what I believed to be the right thing to do.'"

Cronley now saw on Winters's face his expectation that Major Wallace would now suffer what a major could expect after speaking so disrespectfully to a lieutenant colonel.

"Tom," Cronley said, "now that you're in the intelligence business, you'll have to understand that nothing is ever what it looks like."

Winters looked at him, but did not reply.

"And look at you now, Billy," Wallace went on, "the youngest lieutenant colonel in the Army."

Wilson looked as if he was going to reply, but changed his mind.

"There's more," Cronley said. "Freddy did some research on how the OSS operated administratively, and found out they had people working for them they called 'civilian experts.'"

"So?" Wallace asked.

"So now DCI-Europe has two such civilian experts. They will be paid-I'm quoting what Freddy found out-'the equivalent of the pay of commissioned officers with similar responsibilities, plus a suitable bonus for voluntarily undertaking a.s.signments involving great personal risk, plus a death benefit of ten thousand dollars should they lose their lives in the performance of their duties.'"

"We had a number of such people," Wallace confirmed.