“He is rarely pleased with anything I do.”
“He wasn’t pleased when you got Bob Mattingly back from Polkovnik Serov?”
“He wasn’t pleased with the way I did it.”
“Oscar was.”
“Oscar? As in Oscar Schultz, executive assistant to Admiral Souers?”
“Right. And El Jefe told me how pleased he, the admiral, and President Truman were with you when you found U-234 at the Magellan Strait and took out SS-Oberführer Horst Lang just before he was going to sell five hundred and sixty kilos of uranium oxide to our Russian friends.”
Cronley met Henderson’s eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“Oscar also told me that your present assignment was not a bone you were tossed when you were relieved as chief, DCI-Europe, but rather at the direct order of the President, who thought—based on the reports of Colonel Mortimer Cohen—that his close friend Justice Jackson was in jeopardy. The President decided that you were just the guy to protect him.”
Again Cronley didn’t reply.
“Although I am assigned to DCI-Europe, my chain of command up is to my old friend Oscar, not to Wallace. I will, however, report to Wallace that Justice Jackson is completely satisfied with the protection you’re giving him, and aside from bedding Janice Johansen almost publicly, you’re not doing anything wrong. I will also report to El Jefe that you’re up to something with Colonel Cohen and Polkovnik Serov that you don’t want to tell me about. I think my report to El Jefe will promptly result in a SIGABA call from El Jefe somewhat angrily ordering you to tell the both of us what the hell you and Cohen are up to with Ivan Serov.”
And yet again Cronley didn’t reply.
“Your call, Cronley,” Henderson said. “You can either trust me now or wait until El Jefe gets on the SIGABA.”
Jesus H. Christ! What do I do?
General Gehlen has told me time and time again how dangerous trusting your gut feeling is.
And my gut feeling is to trust this guy.
My mother used to tell me, “There is an exception to every rule.”
So if I break Gehlen’s rule, is Henderson promptly going to Wallace?
“Colonel, you won’t believe what your loose cannon has been up to.”
I could, I guess, get on the SIGABA to El Jefe and tell him.
Oh, fuck it!
“Major, have you heard about Castle Wewelsburg? What Himmler and company were up to there?”
Henderson shook his head, then asked, “Are you going to tell me?”
“Not here. Let’s adjourn to the Duchess Suite.”
“Fine. Shall we take the Jack Daniel’s with us?”
“Why not?”
[SIX]
The Duchess Suite
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2005 22 February 1946
Cronley walked directly to what had been the wardrobe of the suite and looked inside.
“Why do I think you were not checking to see if your dry cleaning has been delivered?” Henderson asked.
“I was checking to see if the SIGABA has been moved to the Mansion.”
“An apt description of your headquarters. I was over there. Just long enough for your people to make me feel unwelcome.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Your people are taking care of you, which suggests they like you. How did you manage to get that place?”
“I have friends in high places.”
“El Jefe?”
“Justice Jackson.”
The door to the suite opened and Janice Johansen walked in.
“Why do I think you’re not about to take me to dinner, Adonis?”
“I’ve told you, you’re prescient,” Cronley replied.
“Who’s your friend?”
“Adonis is still making up his mind whether I fit that description, Miss Johansen.”
“This is Major Anthony Henderson,” Cronley said. “He’s the DCI-Europe inspector general.”
“Wallace sent you to snoop on Adonis, did he, Tony?”
“I wouldn’t put it in quite those words, Janice.”
“Well, Adonis, is he or ain’t he one of the good guys?”
“About three minutes ago, I decided he is.”
“Thank you,” Henderson said.
“So what are you and your new friend chatting about in here where no one can hear you? Castle Wewelsburg?”
“We were about to do just that.”
“You recall promising to tell me all about it, I hope.”
“I do.”
“Then I guess I got here just in time.”
Where do I start?
At the beginning.
And what do I tell them?
Every last goddamn thing, including that I left there feeling I had just escaped Dracula’s Castle.
With Dracula and sixty demons hot on my tail with evil intentions.
“We landed at an airfield near Paderborn Cohen has taken over, and X marked the runways so that nobody will land there . . .”
“My God!” Henderson said. “If it wasn’t you and Cohen, I wouldn’t believe any of this.”
“Janice, I hope you recall that when I told you I’d tell you, I told you you’d have to hold off on writing it.”
“I recall. But let me give a brief lesson in Journalism 101. Let’s say I knew for a fact—and nobody else did—that Harry Truman fortified himself with half a bottle of Old Crow before delivering the State of the Union speech. Because I have a certain reputation, if I wrote that story it would be on the front pages of a lot of newspapers. That would make the White House hate me and make me a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize.
“If, however, I knew for a fact—and nobody else did—that Bess had caught ol’ Harry with a hooker and beat him and the hooker nearly to death with a bottle of Old Crow and wrote the story, it wouldn’t get published. Nobody would believe it because they wouldn’t want to believe it. So who do you think would want to believe what you just told us?”
“Interesting point, Janice,” Henderson said thoughtfully.
“How about the Jews?” Cronley asked. “They know what the Germans did to the Jews here.”
“What they did to the Jews here is provable. It was incredible, but then we sent the photographers to the extermination camps and they took pictures of the ovens and the piles of bodies and that made it credible. All you’ve got to show the Jews—all you’ve got to show anybody—is pictures of a castle that was burned and looted. Like Tony here, if it wasn’t you and Cohen, my professional opinion of what you just told us would be ‘Oh, bullshit!’”
“Actually, it’s worse than that,” Cronley said. “Cohen is so interested—maybe obsessed—with Wewelsburg because he thinks the Nuremberg trials will be pissing in the wind.”
“The vengeance of the victors?” Henderson asked softly.
“Particularly the vengeance of the Jewish victors, who as all Germans know, are really running everything.”
“What you and Morty need, sweetie, is to get some Nazi big shot—preferably a lot more than one—whom the Germans still adore and get him, them, to fess up convincingly. That’s going to be hard because we’re going to hang the big shots who could do that for us.”
“There’s a lot of big-shot Nazis still on the loose,” Cronley replied. “Properly questioned, I hope I can get some answers from them. I start tomorrow morning with Sturmbannführer Heinz Macher, who tried to blow up Castle Wewelsburg.”
“No offense, Jim,” Henderson said, “but do you think you’re qualified to do that?”
“No. But since I have an honest face, speak Strasbourger German, and I’m neither Jewish nor Russian, I’m going to give it one hell of a try.”
VIII
[ONE]
The Dining Room
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0725 23 February 1946
Colonel Mortimer Cohen, Captain Chauncey Dunwiddie, and Casey Wagner walked up to the table where Cronley and Major Henderson were about to finish their breakfast.
“Casey I expected. But to what may I attribute the honor of the unexpected presence of you two?” Cronley asked.
“I need your permission to do something,” Cohen said seriously, as he sat down.
Cohen needs my permission?
What the hell?
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Henderson said.
“Tony, this is Captain Dunwiddie, my executive officer,” Cronley said.
“I had the privilege of meeting the captain at the Mansion yesterday,” Henderson said.
“You told me. I forgot,” Cronley said. “So let me bring him up to date. Tiny, Major Henderson is one of the good guys. He’s welcome at the Mansion.”
“So Colonel Cohen told me,” Dunwiddie said.
“What’s going on?” Cronley asked.
“Colonel Rasberry has a problem with his enlisted men,” Cohen said.
“He told me,” Cronley said. “They’re all eighteen years old and don’t know how to drive.”
“More of a problem than that,” Cohen said. “He suspects someone is getting to his enlisted men. No proof, but that gut feeling we’re always talking about. Good officers like Rasberry are usually right when they have a gut feeling about their enlisted men.”
“Getting to his enlisted men? How? Who?” Henderson asked.
“There’s a number of people who want to smuggle things, primarily messages, but God only knows what else, to—and from—the prisoners. Rasberry has a gut feeling that’s happening.”
“And he wants the CIC to look into it?” Henderson asked.
“What he asked me to do is send a couple of my agents into the 26th Infantry undercover to see what, if anything, is going on.”
“Makes sense,” Henderson said. “Are you going to do it?”
“I’d be happy to. The problem is—”
“That none of your agents look like eighteen-year-old PFCs?”
“Right.”
“Clever intelligence officer that I am, I suspect that this conversation now turns to DCI Special Agent Wagner,” Cronley said.
“Yes, it does.”
“If Casey’s willing, that’s fine with me,” Cronley said. “Casey?”
“Yes, sir. I’d like to.”
“Casey hasn’t been in the Army long enough to learn never to volunteer for anything. On the other hand, he’s already proved he’s damned good at working undercover. That’s why he’s one of the two youngest special agents in the DCI.”
“Who’s the other one?” Dunwiddie asked.
“You’re looking at him,” Cronley said. “So what’s Casey going to be looking for in the 26th Infantry Regiment?”
“Find some other PFC who has a lot of money, or who has a romantic involvement with a fräulein,” Cohen said.
“Nine out of ten PFCs in the Army of Occupation have a relationship with a fräulein,” Cronley said. “This place is the realization of every eighteen-year-old’s fantasies. Shall I pay a Hershey bar to get laid before I go to the movies, or should I go to the movies first and then get laid?”
“I wonder how many PFCs have a relationship with a handsome eighteen-year-old German male?” Henderson asked.
“A handsome eighteen-year old queer German male?” Cronley asked.
Henderson nodded.
“Interesting question,” Cohen said.
“Is anyone interested in my scenario?” Henderson asked.
“I think we all are,” Cronley said.
“Let’s start with the premise the somebody who is trying to corrupt one of Colonel Rasberry’s PFCs or corporals is interested in getting him to smuggle things to and from the prisoners.
“Who would want to do that? I suggest someone smart, somebody in Odessa, for example. Or some Nazi, some SS officer not affiliated with Odessa who needs to communicate with a prisoner, or get something to him.
“Anyway, someone smart enough to know that a PFC who suddenly has a lot of money would attract unwanted attention. So how else could one entice a nice young American boy to do something illegal?
“Find one who might be interested in other young males, arrange for them to have an affair, and then take movies of the lovers having at it.”
“And unless you do so-and-so, we’ll see that Colonel Rasberry and your parents get the movies of you blowing your boyfriend in the mail, and you’ll be court-martialed and sent to prison, and your parents—the whole world—will know why,” Cronley said.
Henderson nodded.
“Wouldn’t that also work for some guy getting a blow job from his fräulein while the cameras rolled?” Casey said.
“A PFC would be far more likely to go to his first sergeant, or even his regimental commander, and confess, Some Kraut took movies of me getting a blow job from my fräulein and said unless I smuggle—what? A letter, some kind of medicine in a capsule to Göring—into Göring or—”
“He will send the movies to your commanding officer—or parents,” Cronley finished for him.
“On the other hand, I think it’s far less likely our PFC would go to his first sergeant or his regimental commander and confess that some Kraut had made movies of him locked in the passionate embrace of his boyfriend.”
“Casey, do you think you could find a pansy among the troops?” Cronley asked.
“They’re not that hard to spot, sir.”
“You said ‘Kraut,’” Dunwiddie said. “Are we sure Germans are trying to do this?”
“No,” Cohen said simply.
“This movie-blackmail scenario smells like something good ol’ Ivan would come up with,” Cronley said. “That’s a comforting thought.”
“Comforting?” Dunwiddie asked.
“I thought he might be here to either whack or kidnap me.”
“You mean that?” Dunwiddie asked dubiously.
“I think that’s a distinct possibility,” Cohen said, “and the more religious piety Serov throws at us, the more I tend to believe it. But returning to the immediate situation, we have another problem.”
“Which is?” Henderson asked.
“At some effort, Colonel Rasberry got General Seidel to agree that the guards in the prison should not be eighteen-year-olds straight from basic training at Fort Dix. Seidel got the G-1 to change the assignment policy. Instead of sending kids straight from the 7720th Replacement Depot in Marburg, which is where they go when they get off the troop ship, soldiers assigned to the 26th Infantry are reassigned from other units in Germany. The basic requirements for such reassignment are six months in Germany and a Secret security clearance.”
“Good idea,” Cronley said.
“Except that it means Casey can’t just show up at the prison. He has to be transferred from some other unit. Dunwiddie suggests General White might be useful in this.”
“Presuming General White will go along,” Dunwiddie said. “We take Casey to the Constabulary School. He gets a tour of that, to see what training he would have gone through, and then he sews on the Constabulary patch and is transferred from one of the Constab regiments to the 26th Infantry.”
“How long do you think, providing General White goes along with this, doing this will take?”
“If you fly Dunwiddie and Casey to Sonthofen right now, we can have Casey chasing fräuleins or being chased by a handsome young German youth by tomorrow night,” Cohen said.
“Is it that important?” Cronley asked.
“More pressing, I think, than
your chat with Sturmbannführer Heinz Macher. That can be put off until you come back from arranging to insert Casey into the 26th Infantry.
“Do you still have a duffel bag, Casey? You’re going to have to have one to make your arrival at the 26th Infantry look credible.”
“It’s in the Horch’s trunk, sir.”
“Am I that predictable? You knew I would be willing to let you stick your neck out like this?”
“I don’t know about Casey, Super Spook,” Cohen said, “but I can say with absolute certainty that no one else in the intelligence community thinks you’re predictable.”
[TWO]
Office of the Commanding General
U.S. Constabulary School
Sonthofen, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1055 23 February 1946
“General, Colonel Wilson is here, with some people. Not on the schedule,” White’s sergeant major, a great bull of a thirty-odd-year-old with a closely cropped crew cut, announced.
“I knew something was going to ruin my day,” White replied. “Let him pass, Charley, but keep an eye on him.”
Lieutenant Colonel William W. “Hotshot Billy” Wilson, who had been at the airfield when Cronley, Dunwiddie, and Wagner arrived and who had offered to drive them to the headquarters building, marched into the office, trailed by the others.
He came to attention and saluted.
“General, I found these nefarious characters trying to infiltrate my airfield.”
“I am always delighted to see Sergeant Wagner, Billy,” White said. “It is Sergeant Wagner, right, Chauncey?”
“Yes, sir,” Dunwiddie said. “He was promoted immediately after a senior officer thought that would be appropriate.”
“Wagner, if you tire of these intelligence types, there’s always a place for you in the Constabulary.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m not sure whether I’m delighted to see you, Mr. Cronley. The story I get is that an officer I reluctantly transferred to you shot himself while cleaning his pistol. Accidents happen, but commanding officers can’t dodge responsibility for not preventing them. Comment?”
Death at Nuremberg Page 17
