The Assassination Option
Page 21
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” El Jefe said, chuckling.
Five long minutes later, Cronley asked rhetorically, “What the hell’s taking that old woman so long?”
Three minutes after that, the old woman finally came out and marched regally back across the café to her table.
“How long have you been in Vienna?” the old lady with the dog asked.
“This is the fourth day. We leave tomorrow.”
“You’re in the Army?”
“I work for the Army. I work with kitchen equipment.”
“You Americans do everything with a machine.”
“Yes, ma’am. We try to.”
Finney’s knee signaled him again and he saw Mannberg stand up and walk into the restroom vestibule. A moment later, Ostrowski followed him.
The waiter delivered the beer and the Slivovitz.
Finney paid for it.
Ostrowski came out of the restroom vestibule and sat at his table.
A minute or so later, Mannberg came out of the vestibule, laid money on his table, and, standing, drank what was left of his pilsner.
Then he walked out of the Café Weitz.
Ostrowski got to his feet a minute later and did the same thing.
I don’t know what the hell went on in the bathroom, but obviously Mannberg somehow found out Rahil/Seven-K wasn’t coming.
Shit!
I wonder what spooked her?
El Jefe had obviously come to much the same conclusion.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m going to go back to the hotel,” he said.
“Yeah,” Cronley said. “So long, Franz Josef.”
The dog yipped at him again.
Cronley gave the can of peanuts to the woman.
“It was nice talking to you,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” she said. “And I thank you and Franz Josef thanks you for the peanuts.”
“My pleasure. Auf wiedersehen.”
Cronley, Finney, and El Jefe had gone to the Café Weitz in the Ford staff car. Mannberg had taken the streetcar from Ringstrasse, and Ostrowski had walked.
They returned to the Hotel Bristol the same way.
When Ostrowski walked into the lobby of the hotel, Cronley, Finney, and Schultz were in the dining room.
When they saw him, Schultz asked, very concerned, “Where the hell is Ludwig? We should have brought everybody back here.”
He stopped when he saw Mannberg come through the revolving doors into the lobby.
Mannberg walked to them and sat down.
“So what do we do now?” Cronley asked.
“Flag down the waiter so I can get one of those,” Mannberg said, indicating Cronley’s glass of whisky.
“That’s not what I meant,” Cronley said.
“Oh,” Mannberg said, thinking he now understood the question. “We go back to Pullach. We’re through here.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cronley flared. “What do we do about getting the money to Seven-K?”
“By now, I’m sure she has it,” Mannberg said. “I gave it to her man—actually her woman—in the restroom vestibule.”
“Seven-K was there?”
“Yes, Jim, she was,” Mannberg said, smiling broadly.
“She was in the café? Where?”
“Sitting next to you while you were feeding her and her dog peanuts.”
VII
[ONE]
Quarters of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer
The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound
Pullach, Bavaria
The American Zone of Occupied Germany
1735 15 January 1946
It had taken Cronley, Hessinger, and Finney nine hours to drive the 270 miles from Vienna to Pullach in the Ford staff car. Schultz, Ostrowski, and Mannberg, who had left Vienna later on the Blue Danube, were already “home”—and sitting at the bar—when the three walked in. Captain Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, Major Maxwell Ashton III, and First Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth were sitting at a table.
As Cronley headed for the toilet, Dunwiddie called, “My guys with you?”
He referred to the men who had gone to Strasbourg and then Vienna with Cronley in one of the ambulances and those in the two ambulances who had gone directly to Vienna.
“Very quickly, as my back teeth are floating,” Cronley replied. “They left when we did, but since there is an MP checkpoint every other mile on the road, God only knows when they’ll get here.”
He then disappeared into the toilet, emerged a few minutes later, and went to the bar.
“Wait a minute before you get into that,” Hessinger said, indicating the bottle of Haig & Haig Cronley had taken from behind the bar and was opening.
“With all due respect, Staff Sergeant Hessinger, I have earned this,” Cronley said, and gave him the finger.
Hessinger appeared about to reply, and then went into the toilet. He came out two minutes later, and as Sergeant Finney went in, announced, “I have been thinking of something for the past two hours that will probably make me very unpopular when I bring it up.”
“Then don’t bring it up,” Cronley said.
“We have to make a record, a report, of what we have been doing,” Hessinger said. “And we have to do it before we start drinking.”
When Cronley didn’t immediately reply, Hessinger went on: “Sooner or later, somebody is going to want to know what we’ve been doing. Somebody is going to want to look at our records. And when that happens, saying ‘We haven’t been keeping any records’ is not going to be an acceptable answer.”
“Jesus!” Cronley said.
“He’s right, Jim,” El Jefe said. “We at least need to keep after-action reports.”
“And who do we report to?” Cronley asked.
El Jefe didn’t immediately reply, and Cronley saw on his face that he was giving the subject very serious consideration.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this,” El Jefe said, after a long moment, and then answered his own question. “Because Cletus didn’t do after-action reports. But that was then and in Argentina. This is now and you’re in Germany. Cletus didn’t have two different groups of people looking over his shoulder to find something, anything, proving he was incompetent. You do, Jim.”
“Two groups?”
“Colonel Mattingly. And the two from the Pentagon . . .”
“Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley,” Hessinger furnished.
“And then there’s the problem of how do we keep the wrong people from getting their hands on the after-action reports Freddy is right in saying we have to make,” Schultz went on.
“Classify them Top Secret–Presidential and Top Secret–Lindbergh,” Cronley suggested.
“How do we keep the wrong people who hold Top Secret–Presidential and Top Secret–Lindbergh clearances from seeing them? Like Mattingly? And Whatsisname? McClung, the ASA guy?”
“And Dick Tracy,” Cronley said.
“Who?” Ashton asked.
“Major Thomas G. Derwin, the new CIC/ASA inspector general. He’s got all the clearances.”
“Why do you call him ‘Dick Tracy’?”
“He was more or less affectionately so known when he was teaching Techniques of Surveillance at Holabird High.”
“You mean the CIC Center at Camp Holabird?” Ashton asked.
“Yes, I do,” Cronley said. “One of the spooks who came to El Jefe’s room in the Bristol was a fellow alumnus.”
“What spooks who came to your room in the hotel?”
Cronley told him.
Ashton thought about that for a moment, and then said, “I know what we can do. About keeping the wrong people from seeing the after-action reports, I mean. Send them to me.”
Ashton ignored him and went on, “And once I get them, as chief, Operation Ost, I can decide who else should see them. I will decide nobody else should see them. That way, they would be on file in case, for example, the admiral wants to.”
“That’d work,” El Jefe said.
“Problem solved,” Cronley said sarcastically. “Now all we have to do is write the after-action report—”
“Reports,” Hessinger interrupted. “Plural. Starting, I suggest, with Tedworth grabbing Colonel Likharev.”
“We need an after-action report on that?” Cronley asked, and as the words came out of his mouth, realized they would.
“On everything,” Schultz confirmed.
“As I was about to say, I don’t know how to write an after-action report,” Cronley said.
“I do,” Hessinger said.
“Congratulations. You are now our official after-action-report writer,” Cronley said. “Have at it.”
“I don’t have the time,” Hessinger said. “Since I am no longer the company clerk. We need somebody else to do it.”
“You’re talking about Staff Sergeant Miller? Your new deputy?”
“He can help, but I’m talking about Claudette Colbert,” Hessinger said.
“Who?” Ashton asked.
“There are apparently two,” Cronley said. “The movie star and Hessinger’s. Hessinger’s Claudette Colbert is an ASA tech sergeant who wants to be an intelligence officer,” Cronley said.
“What about her?” El Jefe asked.
“She takes shorthand, and she types sixty words a minute,” Hessinger said. “We could really use her.”
“Not to mention, she intercepts for us what Parsons and Ashley are saying to the Pentagon. And vice versa,” Cronley said.
“Then get her, Jim,” Schultz said. “The admiral gave you authority to recruit people. Call Major McClung and tell him you want her.”
“There’s two problems with that,” Cronley said. “I’ve never laid eyes on Sergeant Colbert, and until I—”
“You’re recruiting her to push a typewriter, Jim, right? So what do you care what she looks like?”
“That’s not what I meant. Freddy says she’s a good-looking female. But I want to make sure she understands what she’s letting herself in for.”
“So send for her and ask her.”
“Before he does that, he better find out if Major McClung is going to let her go,” Hessinger said.
“Right,” El Jefe said. “Get on the secure line and call Major McClung.”
“How did you know we have a secure line to the ASA?”
“Because when I asked Sergeant Tedworth to show me your SIGABA installation, I saw how amateurishly the ASA—being Army—had set up your secure line and showed them the smart—Navy—way to do it,” El Jefe said. “Sergeant Tedworth, would you please go in there and get the secure line phone for Mr. Cronley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any questions, Mr. Cronley?”
Cronley shook his head.
“Not even about me calling you ‘Mr. Cronley’?” El Jefe pursued.
“Okay. Why did you refer to me as ‘Mr. Cronley’?”
“Because if when you call Major McClung you identify yourself as ‘Captain Cronley,’ he will be reminded that he outranks you. If you say you’re ‘Mr. Cronley,’ that won’t happen. ‘Misters’ don’t have ranks, they have titles. For example, ‘chief, DCI-Europe.’”
“But ol’ Iron Lung knows I’m a captain. Also, I suspect he doesn’t like me,” Cronley argued. “Given those facts’ bearing on the problem, my suggestion is that you call him.”
“When I’m gone, Mr. Cronley, say tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you’re going to have to deal with ol’ Iron Lung—and others in the Farben Building—”
“You’ll be gone tomorrow? Or the day—”
“I hadn’t planned to get into this yet,” El Jefe said. “But why not? This is as good a time as any.
“Freddy was not the only one having profound thoughts on the way back from Vienna,” Schultz went on. “Okay, where to start? With my orders from the admiral. The admiral thinks that we don’t—you don’t—fully understand how potentially valuable an intelligence asset Colonel Likharev is—”
“But we’ve already turned him,” Cronley argued.
“He’s turned for the moment, for two reasons: You did a very good job, Jim, of selling him on his duty as a Christian, as a man, to do whatever he can to save his family from the attentions of the NKGB. You told him you would try to get his family out of Russia. And then the NKGB tried to kill him.”
“I don’t understand where you’re trying to go with this,” Cronley said.
“You know Colonel Sergei Likharev as well as anybody, Jim. What do you think he’s doing practically every waking moment?”
Cronley thought a moment.
“Wondering if we can get his family out?” he asked finally.
“How about him wondering if you just said you were going to get his family out? Wondering if you never had any intention to do that? Wondering if you could be expected to try to hand him a line like that? In reversed circumstances, it’s something he would have tried himself.”
“But I wasn’t lying!”
“I don’t think he’s convinced about that. I think every day he grows a little more convinced that he’s been lied to. That one day, he’ll be told, ‘Sorry, we tried to get them out and it just didn’t work.’ And, frankly, one day we might have to do just that.”
“Jesus!”
“And getting his family out is all he has to live for. If he loses that, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to take himself out.”
“Jesus!”
“And even if we kept him from doing that, and we’re damned sure going to try to, he’ll shut off the flow of intel. Either refuse to answer any more questions, or hand us some credible bullshit and send us on one wild-goose chase after another. And he’d be good at that.
“So what I thought on the way from Vienna is that Polo and I have to go to Argentina and look him in the eye and tell him everything that’s happened and is happening. Everything. Including you loaning the DCI the hundred thousand of your own money, and meeting Rahil/Seven-K in the Café Weitz. Even you feeding her dog peanuts and not having a clue who she was.”
“Why would he believe you? Or Polo?”
“Likharev, like many good intel officers, can look into somebody’s eyes and intuit if they’re lying. Or not. Freddy says he can do that. I believe him. I think Colonel Mannberg can do it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you could. Hell, I know you can. You wouldn’t have been able to turn Likharev in the first place if you hadn’t known in your gut when he was lying and when he was telling the truth.”
“Okay,” Cronley said. “I can do it. Let’s say you’re right and Likharev can do it. So he looked in my eyes and decided I wasn’t lying about trying to get his family out. Doesn’t that count?”
“That was then. Now he’s had time to think his gut reaction was flawed.”
“Okay. So now what?”
“I told you. Polo and I are on the next SAA flight to Buenos Aires. Leaving you here to deal with Major McClung and the others by your lonesome.”
“Christ!”
“Hand Mr. Cronley the telephone, Sergeant Tedworth.”
“My father could do that,” Captain Dunwiddie said thoughtfully. “Look in my eyes and tell if I was lying.”
“Thank you for sharing that with us, Captain Dunwiddie,” Major Ashton said. “And now that I think about it, several young women I have known have had that ability.”
The telephone was an ordinary handset and cradle mounted on an obviously “locally manufactured” wooden box about eig
ht inches tall. There were three toggle switches on the top of the box, and a speaker was mounted on the side. A heavy, lead-shielded cable ran from it to the room in which the SIGABA system was installed.
“The left toggle switch turns the handset on,” El Jefe said. “The one in the middle turns on the loudspeaker, and the one on the right turns on the microphone. I suggest you leave that one off.”
“The line has been checked, and you’re into the ASA control room in Frankfurt, Mr. Cronley,” First Sergeant Tedworth said. “Just flick the left toggle.”
“Is that the truth? Let me look into your eyes, First Sergeant,” Cronley said, as he flipped the left toggle switch, and then the center one.
Almost immediately, there came a male voice.
“Control room, Sergeant Nesbit.”
“J. D. Cronley for Major McClung.”
“Hold one.”
Thirty seconds later, the voice of Major “Iron Lung” boomed from the speaker.
“What can I do for you, Cronley?”
“I want to steal one of your people from you.”
“I was afraid of that. General Greene showed me that EUCOM will provide letter.”
“Actually, I want more than one of your people,” Cronley said, and as the words came out he realized he was in “automatic mouth mode.”
“I was afraid of that, too. Okay, who?”
“I’ve only got one name right now, somebody I know wants to come work for us.”
“Okay, who?”
“One of your intercept operators, Tech Sergeant Colbert.”
There was a just perceptible pause before McClung asked, “What do you want her for, besides intercepting messages between Colonel Parsons and the Pentagon?”
Christ, he knows!
Why am I surprised?
Because you forgot “to know your enemy,” stupid.
So what do I do now?
I don’t know, but lying to Major McClung isn’t one of my options.
“That, too, but right now I want her because she can take shorthand and type sixty words a minute. Colonel Ashton has told me our record-keeping, especially after-action reports, is unacceptably in arrears.”
“Meaning nonexistent?”
“That’s what the colonel alleges.”