Curtain of Death

by W. E. B Griffin

“Ready, Ludwig, for some of that Viennese Gemütlichkeit we hear so much about?”

  “Frankly, no,” Mannberg replied. But he stood up.

  “Mit ihrer Erlaubnis, Herr Generalmajor?”

  “Go with God, Ludwig,” Gehlen said, then added, “The both of you. And remember, as outnumbered as we are, neither of you is expendable.”

  VIII

  [ ONE ]

  Suite 304

  The Hotel Bristol

  Kaerntner Ring 1

  Vienna, Austria

  1605 29 January 1946

  There came a melodious chime indicating someone at the door of the suite, and Cronley went to the door and opened it.

  Two men were standing there, both wearing ODs with triangles. One was in his late thirties, and the other in his twenties.

  “Please come in,” Cronley said.

  “How are you, Jim?” the younger man said, offering his hand.

  Cronley thought: What the hell is his first name?

  “Good to see you, Spurgeon,” Cronley said.

  Mannberg rose from the couch on which he was sitting.

  The older man offered him his hand, but neither spoke.

  Mannberg gestured around the room, pointing a finger at the chandelier and the lamps, his raised eyebrows making it a question.

  “Swept an hour ago, Mr. Mannberg.”

  “Ludwig, please, Colonel Wassermann,” Mannberg said.

  “Karl-Christoph, but I usually go with Carl, with a ‘C,’” Wassermann said, and then went on. “What are a couple of nice German-American boys like us doing in this business?”

  “Fighting the Red Menace?” Mannberg said.

  “And how can the Vienna CIC help the DCI in that noble endeavor?”

  “Why don’t we have a taste of Slivovitz while I tell you?”

  Wassermann said, “When I told my mother I was coming to Vienna—actually I’m a Hungarian-American boy, Mother is from Budapest—she strongly advised me to stay away from that fermented plum juice, but why not?”

  Cronley remembered that the last time they were in Vienna, he had told Spurgeon that he was “sort of aide-de-camp” to Mannberg, and hurried to pour the Slivovitz.

  Mannberg and Wassermann touched glasses.

  “Does the name Ivan Serov mean anything to you, Carl?” Mannberg asked.

  “If you’re talking about the Ivan Serov who is first deputy to commissar of State Security Nikolayevich Merkulov, it does.”

  “Mr. Cronley and I are going to have dinner with Comrade Serov tonight at the Drei Husaren.”

  “They do a very nice Paprikás Csirke,” Wassermann said in German. “Just like my mother used to make. Are you familiar with that, Mr. Cronley?”

  He wants to know if I speak German. What’s that all about?

  “No, sir,” Cronley replied in German. “My mother is a Strasbourger.”

  “They simmer chicken in a paprika sauce until tender and then stir in sour cream,” he went on, still in German. “You really ought to try it.”

  “Thank you, sir, I will.”

  “What Comrade Serov wants to discuss is an exchange,” Mannberg said. “I’m presuming you know Colonel Mattingly’s gone missing.”

  “General Greene called to tell me about Mattingly. He didn’t tell me the Reds have him.”

  “He may not know,” Mannberg said. “We heard from a former Abwehr Ost asset. I don’t know if the chief, DCI-Europe, told General Greene.”

  “I have to wonder why not. Is there—how do I say this?—friction between Greene and the chief, DCI-Europe?”

  Wassermann’s eyes drifted to Cronley, then back to Mannberg.

  Why did he look at me, Mannberg’s “aide”? Does he think I’ll talk? Or is there something else?

  And why the hell did he ask that?

  Has that sonofabitch Seidel been bad-mouthing me—DCI-Europe—to this Wassermann?

  More important, has he been successful?

  And is that somehow going to fuck up this meeting with Serov?

  Seidel didn’t know about that.

  Unless of course somebody I trust got on the phone and told him.

  Shit!

  “No,” Mannberg said. “I know for a fact that the chief thinks very highly of General Greene. And, as far as I know, the reverse is true.”

  “The speed with which gossip travels is often a function of how nasty, and untrue, the gossip is,” Wassermann said. “What kind of an exchange?”

  “Well, we don’t know for sure—our contact didn’t use names. Just that we have something they want which they wish to exchange for something they have.”

  “Can you tell me what we have?”

  “We think Serov is talking about Polkóvnik Sergei Likharev of the NKGB, who the chief turned and moved to Argentina.”

  “I didn’t know we—you—had Likharev,” Wassermann said. “But I suppose there’s a lot of interesting things I’m not told about.”

  “That happens to all of us, I suppose,” Mannberg said.

  “If you don’t feel comfortable answering this, don’t,” Wassermann said. “But the first things that popped into my mind just now were surprise that you were—your chief was—able to turn someone as senior as Sergei Likharev. And then I wondered if he’s really been turned, or whether Merkulov has misinformation, important misinformation, that he wants to feed our side through Likharev.”

  “That’s still possible, I suppose, but everything he’s given to us since the chief got Likharev’s wife, Natalia, and their sons, Sergei and Pavel, out of Russia and to Argentina has been both valuable and has checked out.”

  “That’s amazing. I hadn’t heard about that, either. But now that would seem to suggest posing the very difficult question to you: Who is more valuable, Polkóvnik Sergei Likharev or Colonel Bob Mattingly?”

  “You knew—know—Colonel Mattingly?”

  “Yes, I do. He’s a fine man and a fine officer.”

  “I don’t know if exchanging Colonel Mattingly is on the table. I would judge probably not. Which brings me to the answer to your question about what you—the CIC—can do for the DCI. The chief decided—and I think he’s right—that we should meet with Comrade Serov to hear what he has to say. And we will. But Mr. Cronley and I want to ensure that we’ll come back to the Bristol after dinner, perhaps to have a beer and some salted peanuts in the bar.”

  “Well, I can certainly understand how much our Soviet friends would like to have a chat with you in the basement of that building on Lubyanka Square.”

  “But even better for them, wouldn’t you agree, would be to have the chief, DCI-Europe, in the Lubyanka basement?”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “I think you do, Carl,” Mannberg said.

  After a visibly thoughtful moment, Wassermann nodded.

  “I was wondering if you were going to tell me,” he said.

  “Who told you? The identity of DCI-Europe is classified. Classified, specifically, as Top Secret–Presidential.”

  Wassermann didn’t reply.

  “You can consider that an order, Colonel Wassermann,” Mannberg said.

  “I’m not sure you have that authority, Mr. Mannberg.”

  “He does,” Cronley said.

  “I have no question about you having that authority, Mr. Cronley,” Wassermann began.

  Cronley’s mouth ran away with him when he saw the look on Spurgeon’s face. His jaw had dropped.

  “Close your mouth, Charley”—Jesus, I just remembered your first name—“or flies will swarm in.”

  Wassermann and Mannberg both chuckled.

  Wassermann then said, “What happened was that General Greene came to see me—”

  Jesus Christ, and I thought Greene could be trusted!

  “And
told you I’m chief, DCI-Europe?” Cronley demanded angrily.

  “He did. And he told me the circumstances.”

  “Jesus Christ! And what did he tell you those circumstances were? And more important, why was he telling you about them?”

  “To answer your second question first: He said that he knew Colonel Mattingly and I were friends, and because of that, he thought I should know what the actual circumstances of your appointment were should Colonel Mattingly come to see me. Which, shortly after General Greene came to see me, Colonel Mattingly in fact did.”

  “What did he want?”

  Wassermann took a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “What General Greene led me to believe he would: to enlist me on the side of those who believe that DCI and, specifically, DCI-Europe have to be taken over by G-2 here and in the Pentagon. And, Mr. Cronley, if General Greene had not come to see me and told me what he did, I would have enlisted. Both because Bob Mattingly is not only an old friend, but an officer for whom I have a great deal of admiration.”

  “Tell me what General Greene told you,” Cronley said.

  “In brief, or in detail?”

  “In detail. Every fucking detail.”

  Cronley sensed Mannberg’s eyes on him. When Cronley raised his eyebrow, Mannberg nodded, just perceptibly.

  Jesus! I expected an icy Gehlen-style glare.

  But that nod means I’m doing the right thing!

  “General Greene told me he had no authority to tell me what he was about to tell me, but that he had decided because of my assignment, and because he knew Bob Mattingly and I were friends, that he was going to tell me, even if I wasn’t in the loop.

  “He said that he had just come from seeing General White. He said General White had told him that Admiral Souers had gone to see him at Fort Riley, just before he came back over here, bearing a letter from President Truman. The handwritten letter made it clear that Souers was speaking with the authority of the President.

  “General White said Souers told him about the formation of DCI, and the command structure of DCI-Europe. The major problem DCI-Europe would face was that the OSS’s movement of Germans to Argentina would be exposed. That Operation Ost would be placed under DCI-Europe. Ensuring that Operation Ost remained secret was the highest priority.

  “The second most important problem facing DCI-Europe—the DCI itself—was that its formation was going to displease the Pentagon, the Navy, the State Department, and the FBI, all of whom had urged the President to disestablish the OSS and have its functions transferred to them.

  “Almost immediately after disestablishing the OSS, the President realized that he had made a mistake. He—the Office of the President—needed an OSS-like organization answerable only to the President. By Executive Order, he established the DCI and named Admiral Souers as director.

  “General Greene told me that General White had told him that Admiral Souers had told him that he—Souers—had been selected for two reasons. One was that the President had turned over to Souers—then assistant chief of naval intelligence—just about all of the OSS operations, including Ost, that had to be kept running when the OSS was disestablished.

  “The second reason was that the President and Admiral Souers were close, longtime personal friends. He trusted him. General White said that Admiral Souers told him that he had told the President that it was to be expected that Army G-2, which had some nominal authority over the OSS—more in law than in fact—would now begin to attempt to swallow DCI, starting with DCI-Europe, and that he didn’t think that should be allowed to happen.

  “White told me that Souers’s recommendation to keep that from happening was to make Generals McNarney and Bull aware of the President’s desires and to establish a command structure within DCI-Europe which could resist the efforts of USFET G-2 to take it over.

  “It was generally assumed that Colonel Mattingly would be named chief, DCI-Europe. Souers recommended that Colonel Mattingly remain with USFET-CIC, where he and many OSS officers had been assigned when the OSS had been disestablished. Souers had met Mattingly and had come to the conclusion that Mattingly, who had applied for a regular army commission, would likely decide that his bread would be better buttered if he joined those who believed that G-2 should swallow DCI-Europe.

  “White said that Souers told him he had suggested to the President a scenario which might solve most of their problems. The President had recently met a very young OSS officer to whom he had awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and promoted from second lieutenant to captain for something he’d done in South America that remains classified.”

  “The DSM?” Spurgeon blurted. “What the hell did you do?”

  “I just said, Lieutenant, that General White said that was classified,” Wassermann said. “Button your lip, Charley!”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “General White said that Admiral Souers had recommended to the President that for both obfuscation and to, quote, have someone to throw to the wolves should Operation Ost be exposed, unquote, newly promoted Captain Cronley could be named chief, DCI-Europe. The appointment of a junior officer to that post, when it inevitably became known, would tend to suggest that DCI-Europe, and thus Operation Ost, was not very important.

  “The question of having a more senior and more experienced officer on hand to both advise Captain Cronley and to step into the chief, DCI-Europe, post should that become necessary would be solved by assigning another former OSS officer, Major Harold Wallace, who was now in USFET CIC, to command a CIC detachment in Munich. General White told me the President had also approved that scenario and it was put in place.

  “That’s about it, Mr. Cronley,” Wassermann concluded.

  “Did General Greene have anything more to say about Major Wallace?” Cronley asked.

  “He said the major had been told to lean over backward to ensure that no one suspected he was in the wings.”

  “That’s all?”

  “He told me that Major Wallace is actually Colonel Wallace,” Wassermann said.

  “Well, I see that he’s told you just about everything that no one’s supposed to know,” Cronley said. “Which leaves just one question: How do you feel about being drafted into the loop?”

  Wassermann visibly considered his reply before giving it.

  “I’m fine with it, Mr. Cronley,” he said finally. “To tell you the truth, when I heard that the OSS was being shut down, I thought it was a mistake.”

  “Why?” Cronley asked.

  “The CIC is pretty good at sensing Joe Stalin’s nose trying to get under the tent flap, but it doesn’t have the authority, or the assets, to stick a bayonet in his nose when he does. I’m hoping the DCI does, that it has the authority to do what needs to be done.”

  “And I’m hoping that the CIC does have enough assets to keep Ludwig and me safe from Joe Stalin’s evil minions while we’re having our dinner tonight,” Cronley said. “Welcome to the loop, Colonel.”

  “I think we do,” Wassermann said. “Let me tell you what I think we should do.”

  Cronley looked at Spurgeon.

  “I wonder what Dick Tracy Derwin would think of you and me being here tonight under these circumstances?”

  “He’d probably wet his pants,” Spurgeon said, chuckling. “We heard what happened to him. He got drunk and fell under a freight train?”

  “That was the conclusion,” Cronley said.

  He met Mannberg’s eyes. There was no visible reaction.

  [ TWO ]

  Drei Husaren Restaurant

  Weihburggasse 4

  Vienna, Austria

  2010 29 January 1946

  On the way to the restaurant from the Hotel Bristol, Cronley and Mannberg walked past the ruins of the Vienna Opera and the Stephansdom—Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. As they passed the latter Mannberg enriched Cronl
ey’s fund of cultural knowledge by telling him that in the cathedral were buried the bodies, or the hearts, or the viscera, of seventy-two members of the Habsburg dynasty, it being the odd Habsburg custom to bury various parts of the bodies of deceased noblemen in separate places.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not at all. By removing the organs, they made sure they were really dead.”

  —

  They were expected at the restaurant. Once Mannberg invoked the name of Colonel Serov, the elegantly uniformed headwaiter bowed them down a flight of stairs to the main dining room.

  Mannberg further added to Cronley’s cultural knowledge by telling him the headwaiter was wearing the uniform of the Fourth Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Hussars, which meant light cavalry.

  “Surreal, Ludwig. People outside are wearing rags and this guy is dressed like a character in a Franz Lehár operetta.”

  “And we haven’t even met Comrade Serov yet,” Mannberg replied. “You know Lehár, do you?”

  “My mother didn’t want me to grow up to be a Texas cowboy. If there was an operetta within five hundred miles, we went to it. Actually, I learned to like Lehár.”

  —

  The restaurant was in the basement of the bomb-damaged building. It was very similar to the one Commandant Jean-Paul Fortin of the DST had taken Cronley and Winters to in Strasbourg, with a high ceiling supported by massive stone arches that had been strong enough to protect the basement when the building had fallen.

  —

  The main dining room was huge. At least a hundred men were seated at candlelit tables, many of them with well-dressed and attractive women. Most, but not all, of the men were in uniform—English, French, Russian, and American.

  More surreal.

  Somewhere in here are the six CIC special agents whom Wassermann has provided to keep us from being kidnapped.

  And, obviously, Serov has NKGB people undercover in here, too.

  So, at least a dozen spooks. Six good guys and at least six bad.

  And I don’t have a clue which is which.